Tomorrow Is...
by SuperKateB
Summary: Time has past, and the Gals, those famous fighters of love and justice, are older now. Where will Fate take them and their children? Perhaps destiny will decide... -- Epilouge to "Totally Galactic!" and "Gals Again"
1. And There Is Light

Epilogue I: And There Is Light  
  
************  
  
"We are to go soon."  
Her voice was crisp and clear as she looked to the pool. The waters   
were crystalline and smooth, surface broken only occasionally by the long   
strokes of swimming.   
The crown of a head appeared out of the water, followed closely by an   
entire head. Red bangs stuck to a pale brow as the woman smiled   
mysteriously. Blinking her gray eyes, she allowed her bare shoulders to   
surface. "I knew that time would come," she responded softly, voice filled   
with a certain timeless quality. "Will you hand me my robes?"  
Picking up the long white robes, the elder of the two women smiled   
back. "Priestess, I have yet to understand you," she sighed, shaking her   
head as she set the clothing near to the edge of the pond.   
Rising out of the water, the red-haired woman slipped the robes over   
her head and pulled back her hair into a tight braid, revealing a glowing   
silver moon on her forehead. "You never have understood me, Little Star,"   
she smiled wisely, tying a white ribbon at the end of the plait and letting   
her hair free. "But that's what has made our friendship so strong years   
ago."  
"It's still strong," argued the elder woman, a strand of thick blonde   
hair falling out of her tight bun and making its way into her green eyes.   
"Just...different..."  
With a chuckle, the red-haired woman wrapped a protective arm around   
her childhood best friend. "I'm willing to bet you that Peter's already   
wondering where you wandered off to," she mused, a sly grin replacing the   
otherwise enigmatic smile. "Shall we go find him?"  
"Race you!" chortled the blonde, dashing down the dirt path toward the  
large estate.   
Braid flying through the air, the younger woman followed.  
************  
  
"She's not usually late," he complained, pacing up and down the small   
parlor. "Where is she?"  
Sipping her tea gingerly, the woman with the green-black hair raised   
an eyebrow and sighed. "Do you ever learn?" she inquired cynically, a wicked  
half-smile passing across her face as she spoke. "You are the Master of   
Time, and thusly cannot be late." She took another long sip of her drink.   
"She is a free spirit..."  
He snorted and crossed his arms. "Then it's a miracle that this   
marriage even works!" he exclaimed, voice filled with a strong trepidation.   
"Besides, she went to get the priestess." Another smile, this one more  
ironic, crossed her pale face. "You know how she and Ambriel get when   
they're together." Finishing off her tea, the woman winked.   
Rolling his red eyes, Peter glanced out of the window and then smiled.  
"You're right, Aeris," he told his sister in a thoughtful voice. "She's with  
the Priestess..."  
Aeris wrinkled her nose. "So?" she asked dryly.   
"And they're racing down the pathway toward the house," he informed   
her in a serious tone. Then, red eyes flaring, he kicked the wall. "How many  
times MUST I tell her that she shouldn't do that! If anything were to   
happen, I'd very well kill myself!"  
She chuckled, shaking her head of long, thick hair slowly. "Nothing   
will happen, and you--as well as I--know that Time will protect all four of   
you..." She chuckled once again, and brushed a strand of green cat fur--cat   
fur?--from her Sailor fuku. "Once, of course, there are four of you." His   
sister slowly started for the door.  
He--Peter Chiba, the Master of Time--blinked at his twin. "And where   
are you going?"  
With a shrug, the young woman pulled a long purple staff out of null-  
space. "You know Joshua as well as I do," she retorted, manner slightly   
aloof, a habit she'd not managed to abandon of even over twenty-eight years   
of life. "He's constantly late, and THIS week, with him working at the   
temple..." She trailed off with a shake of her head.  
"Are you going to end up like Mother did?" questioned the young man   
with the raise of a single brown eyebrow. "Will you give birth to the heirs   
of Time out of wedlock?"  
Her expression turned to a dark scowl, and colorful eyes faded to an   
angry black. "Alright, you can shut up..."  
Suddenly, the door burst open and two young women burst in through it,  
panting for breath. The first was slightly older than the siblings who were   
already in the parlor, her long blonde hair falling from a once-elegant bun   
at the nape of her neck. A long golden gown, the color of the sunset, flowed  
around her body, but its brilliance was marred with a slight dusting of mud.  
Still, she smiled upon making her less-than-grand entrance and even managed   
to bow in the direction of the fuku-clad adult. "Good afternoon, Pluto," she  
greeted merrily. "Sorry I'm late, dear."  
Peter, hands upon his hips, gave her the once-over with his intense   
eyes. "What exactly do you think you're DOING?" he questioned in a low tone,  
causing his wife to blush noticeably and focus on her dirty shoes. "We have   
to be at Crystal Palace in an hour, and you're out racing down a path! In a   
gown! And the baby..."  
With one hand, she touched his arm gently, green eyed gaze searching   
for the love in his eyes--the love that, oddly enough, never left no matter   
how angry he was. Her other hand caressed her own slightly bulging stomach   
as she smiled up at him.  
"I'm sorry," she whispered as he sighed and wrapped his arms around   
her waist. "I just enjoy life so much..."  
Burying his face in her golden locks, he nodded at her comment. "I'm   
far too tough on you, even now," he responded, sighing into her tresses and   
eliciting a little giggle from her lips. "I just am so protective of the   
gifts I have been given..."  
Sailor Pluto--or, as she preferred, Aeris Chiba--grimaced at the sweet  
show of affection between her brother and sister-in-law, thumping her Time   
Key on the tile floor to draw attention to herself. "I'm going to the   
Yoshiko house in a whopping TWO minutes," she groaned, colorful eyes rolling  
back in her head as she spoke, "and you KNOW how HE gets when I come over.   
So PLEASE spare me the mush."  
The blonde woman let a slow blush creep across her face. "I'm sorry,   
Sailor Pluto..."  
"And stop calling me that!" she exclaimed, once again rolling her   
eyes. "Yes, I'm Sailor Pluto, but I'm ALSO your sister..." Sighing, she   
snapped her fingers and blinked--literally blinked--out of existence.  
Celeste wrinkled her nose. "She's getting cynical in her age, isn't   
she?"   
"Very," agreed her husband before he bent down to lay a few butterfly   
kisses on her neck. "But you can't hold that against her, after all..."  
"A-hem."  
The couple turned to face the young woman who still stood in the   
doorway, her stark white priestess robes completely out of place in the   
brightly colored parlor. Her hair, like that of her friend's, had long ago   
freed itself of the white ribbon and now was nothing more than a wavy mass   
of red around her face. The silver moon sigil upon her brow sparkled in the   
lamplight, and it was all that the blonde woman could do to smile. Years   
ago, that woman had been Ambriel, a lost little girl who played with   
Prophesy.   
Now, she was the High Priestess of the Silver Moon.  
"I'm sorry to interrupt this romantic interlude of yours," she put in,  
her fierce gray eyes looking over the embrace her friends were sharing, "but  
I was curious to whether or not Larissa is dressed yet."  
"Honestly," Peter replied with a wrinkle of thought in his brow, "I'm   
not sure. I believe she is..."  
His bride giggled and pulled herself from his grip. "I can't leave you  
to do ANYTHING, can I?" she asked teasingly.  
He crossed his arms over his chest and rolled his red eyes. "Like   
Sailor Pluto doesn't distract you, too..."  
"Come, Ambriel," laughed the blonde at her husband's comment, "let us   
see what the little imp is up to, shall we?"  
Peter sighed and shook his head as the two retreated from the room.   
"She's a free spirit," he reminded himself softly, picking the single teacup  
off the table and starting for the kitchen. "I just hope that Larissa   
doesn't inherit that, too..."  
************  
  
"We're going to be late!"  
"Where are my shoes?!"  
"Rhea! Have you been in my perfume?"  
"Shoes, shoes, shoes..."  
"Rhea..."  
"Eeek! My FAVORITE blush!"  
"Don't you duck the subject!"  
"Sharon..."  
"Hang on! Rhea, have you or have you not--"  
"Delaney, have you seen my shoes?"  
"Oh, just answer the Goddamn question, Rhea!"  
The little apartment was an absolute blur of color as the two young   
women rushed through the few rooms, trying desperately to prepare for their   
appearance that afternoon. One woman, with short black tresses, knelt on the  
floor, seemingly searching under the single brown couch for something.   
Standing above her was a long-haired woman garbed in blue, her piercing   
green eyes glaring at the figure on the floor as she held a mostly-empty   
glass container in one hand. Her other hand rested on a shapely hip.  
The last woman, however, was collapsed in an armchair, a pair of high-  
heeled shoes sitting in her lap. Unlike the other two, she was fully   
clothed, and her brightly purple eyes were half-closed in annoyance as she   
rested her chin in a hand. Straight, blackish-purple tresses hung limply to   
her shoulders and she, as her mother before her, was dressed in a long gown   
of the purest ebony color. She let the anarchy reign for another long moment  
as the woman on the floor continued to search for the ever-elusive shoes in   
question. Then, she finally spoke.  
"Rhea, I have your shoes. You left them on the chair, and that's where  
they have been for three days. Sharon, no one was in your perfume--I think   
that you grabbed mine off the bathroom sink by mistake. And--unless you like  
the type of perfume I like--I suggest you put it back."  
Rhea grabbed her shoes from the lap of the oldest of the trio, her   
expression one of a woman thoroughly pissed off for a moment before she   
smiled cheerily and ran a hand through her short, messy tresses. Plopping   
down on the floor to slip on her shoes, she cocked her head to one side.   
"I'm glad to have a big sister like you, Delaney!" she grinned, her bright   
copper eyes smiling at the relaxed adult. "What would we do without you?"  
"We'd probably be living in Aeris' Hell-hole of an apartment,"   
responded the last adult after she'd returned from the bathroom, another   
glass vial in hand. "And, though she is my older sister and I love her   
dearly, I like it better here."  
With the slight curve of a smile touching her lips, twenty-six-year-  
old Delaney Hartford glanced at her two friends. Rhea, five years her   
junior, was a lot like their father had always been--easy-going, fun, and   
quite friendly. It was a trait that she knew she'd never have, for she was   
more like their mother. Though not cold, calculating, or evil--the last of   
those words caused her smile to fade--she was Saturn, which could be a   
blessing and a sin. And, when the Eve arrived... She shuddered and didn't   
continue that thought.  
Then, there was Sharon Chiba, her burgundy hair and strangely green   
eyes a bit unsettling. Though only three years younger, she certainly lacked  
in the maturity that her two older siblings had inherited, and seemed to   
lack the strange semblance of maturity that the younger Hartford daughter   
had as well. Delaney's smile returned; it seemed as though the two younger   
women had lucked-out and grown to be more like their fathers than their   
mothers. They hadn't been the first-born. They would never be Sailor Scouts.  
They would never taste the blood of battle.  
And, as the two hurricanes that were her best friends resumed their   
erratic paths, the older woman sighed wistfully.  
They were lucky, indeed.  
************  
  
She chuckled and tucked her arms behind her head, leaning against the   
back of the couch as she watched the lean, long-legged auburn-haired woman   
chase the dark-haired boy around the family room. Her icy eyes took in all   
the goings-on as a blessing rather than an annoyance and, for a fleeting   
moment, she found herself wishing for a family.  
Her amused smile faded as she forced THAT thought from her mind.  
"You COULD help, you know," growled the woman, pausing in her pursuits  
to take a deep, shuddering breath. Then, she smacked her friend upside the   
head with a large throw pillow. "Just because you haven't been back to Tokyo  
too often since you left for Europe..."  
"It was Paris, mon cherie," responded the other woman, her French   
accent sounding odd along with her Japanese drawl. "And, besides, he's your   
son, Alice."  
The brown-eyed glare didn't fade. If anything, it intensified. "You   
really don't have any children, do you?"  
Her friend chuckled. "Oui."  
"Not even an illegitimate one?"  
Icy eyes widened in doubt as the dancer rose to her feet, gown of deep  
red complimenting her milky skin as she placed her hands on the back of the   
couch and 'looked' at her companion. "Don't you think that I'd KNOW if I got  
pregnant?"  
"You're Phoebe," retorted Alice with a toothy grin. "ANYTHING can   
happen when there's a Phoebe around!"   
Feigning hurt, the blue-haired woman flipped a braid of hair behind a   
slender and stuck her dainty nose in the air. "Well, I'm offended!" she   
snorted indignantly, crossing her arms under her ample bosom as she spoke.   
"What would S--" She froze and the color slowly seeped from her cheeks.  
"What would WHO think?" inquired her friend with the raise of a single  
brown eyebrow. "Don't tell me that you have some sort of boyfriend that I   
don't know about!"  
A dark-headed child peeked out from around the wall dividing the   
living area from the kitchen. Silence fell over the threesome as the   
dramatic woman slumped back onto the couch and sighed, defeat. The little   
boy took a wary step out from the next room to hear the impending response.  
Phoebe folded her hands over her flat stomach, shrugging her   
shoulders. "Sort of," she replied to her staring companion. "Not really a   
BOYFRIEND, per say, but someone who I..."  
"Ah-HA!" interrupted Alice, diving toward the kitchen doorway in all   
her dress-clad splendor. Her son was caught off-guard as he was seized by  
the waist and hauled unceremoniously toward the hallway, kicking all the   
way.  
The dancer held back a chuckle as she glanced at the odd sight. "Oh,   
my..."  
Grunting in effort, the auburn-haired one glared at her friend and   
then back at the boy in her arms. "Come now, Nick, we are GOING to put that   
tie on you if it kills me!"  
With a whimper, the child finally gave up and let himself be led   
toward his bedroom.  
As the duo left her alone, Phoebe let out a long sigh and kicked her   
shoeless feet onto the coffee table, the normal coloration returning to her   
face as she did so. From around her neck, she picked up a small, heart-  
shaped locket and flipped it open, staring at a tiny picture within. A sad   
smile crossed her face as she caressed the tiny golden charm with a gentle   
finger.   
"You know what?" she asked the little photo. "As much as I miss both   
you and Paris... It's really good to be home."  
************  
  
"This is like a bad dream come true!" whined the blonde girl with a   
wrinkle of her nose. Her long black skirt softly caressed her long legs and   
smoothed over round, flawless hips as she paced back and forth across the   
kitchen of the large house. Every so often, she would glance at her watch   
and then at the other, smaller girl who was seated comfortably at the oak   
table. Each time the older girl glanced at her watch, she also sent a glare   
in the direction of the younger girl. Every time she received a glare, the   
younger girl just took a calm sip from her water bottle and smiled.  
Finally, the one in the black skirt had had too much and thundered   
toward the stairwell, bright copper eyes lowered in an angry glare. "WE'LL   
BE LATE!" she called up the steps, her voice filled with annoyance and   
frustration. "You KNOW how Auntie gets when we're late, too!"  
A female voice, both low and patient, floated down from above. "Vesta,  
be a dear and calm your sister's fried nerves before she storms off and   
drives herself to Auntie's, will you?"  
There was a chuckle coming from the same direction. "Besides, Uncle B   
doesn't care when we're late!" quipped a man sweetly.  
"But you know my sister DOES care," retorted the woman coolly, the   
patience in her tone wearing thin.  
"That's not the point, dear..."  
"Yes it is, dear..."  
The peaceful argument lowered to a point beyond hearing levels, and so  
the black-skirted young woman smoothed her ruffled blue sweater and cast a   
glance at the younger girl at the table. "Alright, Vesta," she told the   
other, "chide away."  
With a sweet smile and the cock of her head, the younger girl brushed   
a long strand of brown hair from her perfectly aqua eyes and shrugged. "Why   
would I do that?" she asked her sister innocently as she smoothed the fabric  
of her knee-length white dress. "I'm nothing special as you are."  
"Okay, enough with THAT speech," groaned the older one, hoisting   
herself up onto the kitchen counter and crossing her legs as she gazed at   
the brunette. Silence fell over the room as the two sisters, four years   
apart, stared wordlessly at one another. It was eerily calm until, finally,   
the younger one spoke up.  
"You know I'm not jealous, Vera," she supplied with a sigh, capping   
the bottle of water and pushing it aside as she rested her elbows atop the   
table. "Jealousy doesn't become me, nor you." She shrugged. "I received   
Mother's looks and Father's temperament. You received just the opposite."  
A snort. The flip of a wave of shoulder-length tresses.  
"Besides, you know what's coming after this party, don't you?" Slight   
silence. "They love us enough to be open with us, but you're just running   
from destiny."  
Widening bronze eyes. A slight gasp.  
Vesta wiped the smile from her face. She'd found the sore spot.  
"You're just like Grandma Al, you know that?"  
The blonde teen leapt off the counter like a shot, her temper flaring   
as she raised an angry fist in the direction of her sibling. A skirt   
rustled. Slipper-covered feet echoed on linoleum.  
Suddenly, a rather average-looking woman with chin-length brown   
tresses stepped between the two sisters and caught the flying fist. Her teal  
eyes were angry and lowered into an accusing glare. Pink lips were pursed in  
a disinterested scowl.  
"You are EXACTLY like your grandmother," stated Haley Hartford   
blandly, freeing the hand of her elder daughter as she spoke.  
Vera wrinkled her nose, an injured expression passing across her face.  
That didn't stop her mother. Few things could stop her mother.  
"And, as smart as you are," she continued, leaving her spot as   
peacemaker to cross the room and remove her purse from the far counter, "you  
should know better than to pick fights." She sighed and shook her head.   
"Brains and a temper like the dickens... What a combination!"  
Raking a hand through his short gold-brown hair, her husband entered   
the room from the stairwell, hands thrust into the pockets of his tuxedo.   
"Good evening, girls," he greeted the two Hartford children with a slight   
bow. "How are the worlds of pacifism and running from the truth?"  
Vesta smiled and rested her small chin in her hands.   
Vera scowled and tossed her head, slender arms folded rather   
stubbornly across her chest.  
Eric paused for a brief moment, copper eyes darting from one daughter   
to another for a brief moment before finally turning his gaze toward his   
wife.   
Shaking her head, the woman rolled her eyes.  
He shrugged. "Well then... Oookay..."  
Silence.   
"This IS a bad dream," muttered Vera under her breath. "And I'm LIVING  
it."  
************  
  
It's not every day that a fuku-clad woman with a giant Key Staff   
waltzes in through the main entrance of a Shinto temple and is openly   
greeted by the High Priestess of that same temple.  
Aeris Chiba groaned as she was wrapped in a tight hug by the raven-  
haired woman.  
"I'm so glad that you decided to drive with us!" smiled Tara, her long  
raven tresses sweeping the back of her knees as she stepped away from the   
tall Guardian of Time. "It's not a long ride to the Palace, only ten minutes  
or so, but I'm glad you came nonetheless!"  
Colorful eyes rolled as the woman spoke. As long as she could   
remember, Cherry Hill had been ten minutes away from Crystal Palace. It   
hadn't changed overnight... She forced a smile. The Sailor Scout of the   
Earth was sure getting strange in her older years.  
Glancing around the living room at the temple, the woman's forced grin  
faded away to a real one. Nothing had changed in the last few years, much to  
her delight. It HAD been five years ago that she and Josh had taken their   
trip to America, hadn't it? She sighed wistfully in remembrance. Those had   
been five beautiful years...  
"Miss Chiba!" called out the teen girl who sat, clad in a long red   
dress, on the old tan couch. Her green eyes sparkled with mirth. "Mom really  
missed seeing you around!" She snickered a bit. "She still thinks that you   
and Uncle Josh are going to get mar--"  
A cough echoed through the air, and the glare of an angry Sailor Scout  
quickly followed suit. The girl silenced herself and folded her hands in her  
lap.  
Of course, it was the duty of the Time Guardian to remain dubious at   
the comment. "Married?" she questioned of the rapidly paling Shrine   
Mistress. "What's this I hear?"  
"I have to go... Go..." Tara smiled hurriedly and bowed toward the   
fuku-clad one. "Sebastian no doubt needs my help! I'll go...help...him!"  
She dashed off, olive-green gown rushing about her legs as she slipped  
through the door and down the hallway, leaving the woman and the girl alone   
in the room.  
With a smile, the teen pushed a long strand of deep brown hair from   
her intense, forest-colored eyes. "She thinks she can tie you down, Miss   
Chiba," she informed the woman.  
"She's thought that for years, Ariel," responded Sailor Pluto with a   
long sigh as she took up an armchair near the window. Her Time Staff faded   
back into null-space as she slumped into the seat, silent.  
There was a long pause, and neither spoke. There was really no reason   
to, after all...  
A nervous chuckle came from the girl, and Aeris turned her bright gaze  
on the child. "I...I was wondering..." stammered Ariel with a slight smile   
on her lips. "Well, uh, how soon IS the Eve, Miss Chiba?"  
The Sailor Scout chuckled. "So then," she replied, her eyes flicking   
to the half-closed door, "you already feel it."  
Nodding her response, the teen's smile faded.  
"Good for you then, Ariel," stated the Guardian of Time with a slight   
hint of amusement in her tone. There was a lengthy pause before she spoke   
again. "And, to set your fears aside, none of us are sure. Yet."  
"Sure of what?" queried a new voice from the door.  
Aeris' face lit up, as much as she tried to hide her delight.  
Shaggy, though not long, brown tresses rimmed the man's face as he   
strode into the room, wearing a classic black tuxedo with a bright red bow   
tie. Purple eyes stared through heavy eyelids at the woman in the armchair.   
She, however, was trying to advert her gaze for some strange reason.  
He knew why. She was going to blush.  
"Hi, Un--" The girl was silenced by a glance.  
Striding over to the single perch near the window, he smiled gently   
and reached down, taking the hand of the Guardian of Time. She didn't look   
up. She didn't move. She didn't do ANYTHING.  
He wrinkled his nose. Well, enough of THAT route...  
"Oomph!" grunted Aeris Chiba as a good 160 pounds of man landed in her  
short-skirted lap.  
Leaning into his new...'seat'...Joshua Yuuichirou shot a triumphant   
smile down at the Guardian of Time. "Given up on playing coy yet, deary?"  
There was a flash of crimson light as the young woman disappeared.  
Then, the light reappeared, bringing the woman with it. Shaking her   
head chidingly, Aeris gazed down at the man now occupying HER place next to   
the window. However, as hard as she was trying to seem mad, the glare   
failed.   
The love in her eyes was unmistakable.  
Meanwhile, on the couch, Ariel Yoshiko had doubled over in laughter.   
Tears streamed down pale cheeks as she slapped the arm of the couch. Her   
guffaws were loud enough to hear around the block.  
If ever the Guardian of Time had been confused, it was now. "What's   
so--eek!"  
Caught around the waist, she was dragged into a warm lap. All the   
squirming in the world could not free her from the strong arms. So, she   
didn't bother.  
"I can see what's so funny," chuckled Tara from the doorway, her   
impossibly tall husband hovering behind her lithe form as she watched Sailor  
Pluto settle into the confining embrace.   
"In all the years that this world has existed," grumbled Aeris in   
annoyance, "a Sailor Pluto has NEVER been treated like this."  
Sebastian leaned against the doorframe, his blue eyes smiling down at   
the couple in the chair. "But, Aeris, aren't you only the second Pluto?"  
Ariel began to laugh again, and the Scout could feel the man beneath   
her begin to chuckle.  
"That," she muttered, "is NOT the point."  
************  
  
The white-marble beauty that was the Moon Palace echoed as three   
voices united as one:  
"WE'RE GOING TO BE LATE!"  
There was a loud thumping from the top of the stairs, and the group in  
the foyer sighed in unison. The first of this trio was a young woman, with   
two long, silvery-pink pigtails flowing from two buns atop her head, nearly   
brushing the floor. Beside her was another young woman, quite obviously of   
the same age, her purely silver tresses pulled up into the same strange   
hairstyle. She was dressed in the same clothes, and the same azure eyes   
glanced out at the full Earth with the same sort of amazed expression...   
They were clearly twins, nearly identical.  
However, whereas the two teenaged twins were calm, the last member of   
the party was pacing nervously. His once silver hair was nearly stark white,  
quite a strange look for him, because such tresses clashed with his silver   
tunic and billowy silver pants. Blue eyes, hidden behind bifocal glasses,   
occasionally glared up the staircase, never seeing more than empty marble   
steps. He wrinkled his nose.  
"We haven't seen Ambriel in ten years," he lamented, the stress in his  
voice almost unbearable for the two bun-headed teens to listen to. "And your  
mother doesn't care!"  
Sighing, the one with the purely silver tresses stepped away from the   
wall and strode over to the man, laying a single hand on his shoulder.   
"Poppa," she soothed, smiling slightly, "you've known her for millennia.   
Give up on making her adhere to schedules."  
The other teen chuckled. "Selene's right!" she chimed, grinning   
widely. "Momma is NEVER on time!"  
"I CAN be, if I want to!" called a voice from the top of the   
stairwell, and three pairs of bright cerulean eyes glanced up at the sound.   
A white gown, as pure and flawless as the shining stars of night, caressed   
her smooth curves and flowed about her long legs, gathered at a high waist   
to clutch her chest with its tight bodice. Golden trim rimmed the very top   
of the strapless dress, color perfectly matching the bright moon sigil   
perched on her brow. Long pigtails, colored bright pink, cascaded down from   
two cone-shaped buns. And scarlet eyes gazed down at the trio through mused   
bangs.  
Unthinking, the single man bowed deeply. "Your Highness," he murmured,  
eyes focused on the floor.  
With a hearty chuckle, the Queen of the entire Solar System, Serenity   
III, began her decent. "Spare me, Helios," she smiled at her husband,   
brushing a strand of curled hair from her face. "I STILL hate bowing."  
One of the girls, called Selene, giggled slightly. Her twin elbowed   
her in the ribs, and it took only a moment for the silver-tressed girl to   
downright turn on her sister. "Sere!" she hissed. "That HURT!"  
Tossing her head haughtily, the other girl rolled blue eyes. "Puh-  
lease, Sele, it didn't hurt at all!" She buffed her long pink fingernails on  
her dress, which was plain white whereas her mother's was trimmed with gold.  
"You're such a wuss!"  
"Just because I prefer books to the treadmill," retorted her sister,   
standing on her tiptoes to heighten her the three-inch difference between   
sisters, "doesn't mean that I'm a wuss!"  
'Sere' snorted and rolled her eyes. "Books?" she questioned. "Try   
MANGA, Sele." She smiled condescendingly and lowered her eyes. "We both KNOW  
that you're a total fangirl."  
"Am not!"  
"Are too!"  
"Am not!"  
"Are too!"  
The argument, as futile as it was, continued even as the High Queen of  
the Solar System met up with her family. A high-heeled shoe clicked on the   
marble floor in annoyance, but neither girl noticed their mother. They   
continued fighting, eyes set in stony glares and pale faces both angered.  
And Helios, the King of the Solar System, rubbed his brow. "I still   
say that twins certainly do not run in MY side of the family, Maiden," he   
sighed as he listened to his daughters argue.   
Resting her hands on her ample hips, Serenity III--better known as   
Reeny--wrinkled her nose. "Selene and Serenity," she commented, shaking her   
head slowly. "Night and day incarnate." Then, she glanced at her husband,   
brow furrowed. "So, you're saying that this is MY fault?"  
Azure eyes immediately popped into a realm of unexplored wideness as   
the young man became cognizant of his comment. "No, no, I didn't say THAT,"   
he frantically insisted, waving his arms as he spoke. "I just meant that,   
well... Elysionians don't have twins often..."  
"Then explain the two sons of the Elysionian High Priests," retorted   
the Queen, the ice in her voice unmistakable.  
"Uhhh..." Helios chewed thoughtfully on his lower lip. "You KNOW how   
weird that woman is! It's not MY fault!"  
"So you're blaming this on Abigail?"  
"Sort of... It's Brice's fault too..."  
"I see..."  
"Maiden, you KNOW that I didn't mean it!"  
"You did TOO! You ALWAYS blame it on me!"  
A sniffle.  
"Now, sweetie, we have to be in Tokyo in forty minutes..."  
"You don't love me, do you?"  
"WHAT? Of course I--"  
"You don't!"  
"Maiden..."  
"WAAAAHHH!!"  
And crying, arguing, and apologies echoed through the Palace of the   
Moon.  
************  
  
"And that, my friends, is how you make pineapple upside-down cake."   
The young man wiped his hands on a towel, smiling brightly at the group of   
TV cameras that were pointed straight at him. Cobalt eyes sparkled. Brown,   
almost black, tresses were blushed from a face. "Next week, Alice will be   
back to cook, along with Elara--" he gestured to a girl, hardly in her   
teens, who was perched on a stool nearby-- "to teach us how to make the   
world famous Kino brownies." He smiled and pulled off his starch white   
apron, revealing a black tuxedo with a navy-colored bow tie. "And, as my   
last words today, happy birthday to the Queen of the Earth." He winked. "We   
all love you, and I'll see you at the party!"  
A man with shaggy purple tresses waved an arm. "And cut!" he   
announced, walking onto the kitchen set as a throng of techies began to pull  
up the various cords and cables strung through the make-shift room. "Great   
episode today, Todd, but I still I can't wait till Alice gets back to doing   
the work!"  
Sighing, Todd Walker nodded and helped the girl called Elara off her   
stool. "Neither can I," he drawled, running a hand through his hair. "But,   
with the new restaurants opening in both Kyoto and Kobe, plus the big party   
tonight--"  
"Nobody has had time to even so much as breathe," echoed three voices,  
and the young man smiled at the brunette girl beside him, then turning his   
eyes to his wife and young son. Another young woman, with long navy tresses   
pulled back in braids and a bright crimson ball gown, stood a bit away from   
the rest, her smile gentle and...sad? Todd frowned--he'd never seen HER, the  
chipper one, look the least bit melancholy. It was...odd...  
The girl grinned widely and pranced over to her mother. "Everybody   
said I looked awesome!" she prided herself, spinning around slightly in her   
bright olive gown, its long skirt swirling about her long legs. "In fact, I   
looked better than Daddy, or so said Mr. Hirozawa!"  
"Well, THANKS, Shintano," sighed Alice, rolling her brown eyes even as  
she grinned and forged hurt. "NOW my daughter has an ego."  
Giving her a 'thumbs up' sign, the purple-haired man from before   
grinned. "Any time, Ally!"  
"And Auntie Pheebs!" Wordlessly, the teen pressed past her mother to   
embrace the slender braided-one around the waist. Phoebe Urawa looked almost  
shocked to have the teen seize her, but she smiled widely and smoothed the   
shoulder-length waves of brown gently.  
Todd smiled. "You know, Phoebe," he commented, hands in his pockets as  
he watched the scene before him, "you WOULD make a very good mother if you   
wanted to."  
Sighing, the dramatic woman best known as the soldier of the sun shook  
her head. "I don't think I was meant to be a mother," she shrugged, still   
sharing an embrace with the Walker girl. "I think that I'm more meant to be   
just a really good aunt to Elara and Nicky."  
"And we like our aunt!" exclaimed the little, dark-haired boy,   
clutching on to his mother's hand. Big blue eyes peered up at the woman   
imploringly, and she gazed down at him, brushing a strand of auburn hair   
from her face as she did so. The boy grinned. "But where's the uncle for   
Aunt Phoebe?"  
Both Alice and Phoebe froze in place, quickly exchanging words without  
speaking as their eyes locked. Todd furrowed his brow; no matter how much he  
loved his wife, there was always a little something left unanswered with   
her...  
"Come on," stressed the braid-headed one suddenly, wrenching her icy   
gaze from her friend's as she seized the hand of Elara. "We'll be late for   
the shin-dig at the palace."  
Sighing, Alice shook her head and followed behind the duo, her   
lavender gown rustling as she walked.  
************  
  
"Calli!"  
"Hang on!"  
"But I NEED the duct tape if I'm going to hang this sign!"  
"My God, Tita, use string or something!"  
"Can I help?"  
"No, Claude, you're too little."  
"But Poppa said..."  
"I DON'T CARE!"  
The Grand Ballroom of Crystal Palace echoed with voices as three   
children, the oldest only about sixteen but the youngest hardly in the   
double-digits, rushed about. One, with long strawberry-blonde curls, bustled  
about, taping vinyl tablecloths onto many long tables. Another, with dark   
red tresses that barely brushed her chin, was carrying around one end of a   
rather large paper sign, the other end dragging dangerously on the tile   
floor as she paced the room. And the third...  
"I WANNA HELP!" cried the little boy, his straight blond hair hanging   
in his face as he sat, cross-legged, in the very epicenter of the ballroom.   
His arms were folded over the chest of his tuxedo as he pouted.  
Sighing, the oldest girl left a tablecloth untapped and paced across   
the room to the child, crouching down carefully. She pushed her small, gold-  
rimmed glasses up on her dainty nose before smoothing out her long, silver   
dress and staring at the boy. "Is something wrong, Claude?"  
He nodded but didn't say anything, tears streaming down his cheeks,   
but remained silent.   
Rolling hazel eyes, the red-haired girl, hardly a teen, shook her   
head. "I know what the problem is, Calli," she sighed, standing on her   
tiptoes as she attempted to hang the aforementioned sign across a single   
wall of the ballroom. "Poppa was trying to get rid of him and told him to   
help out, but he's too little." She shrugged and slipped the once-abandoned   
roll of tape from her wrist, applying the sticky substance to the sign's   
corner.  
"Titania!" scolded the curly-haired teen, skirts rustling as she stood  
up. "How could you pick on him like that?"  
"I..." The boy called Claude sniffled. "I just wanted to help,   
Callisto," he lamented, lower lip quivering as he glanced up at her with   
puppy-dog eyes. "But Poppa's always SOOO busy..."  
Callisto smiled sweetly down at her little brother and offered forth a  
hand. "I know, I know," she soothed, helping him up. "It's Ma's birthday,   
after all, so we HAVE to celebrate it..."  
A silvery form which had, the entire time, been perched on the edge of  
a small wet bar in one corner, rolled two green, eye-like orbs. "Give me a   
BREAK," she--the voice gave away that it was truly a she--snorted in   
annoyance. "You guys have to stop being so cute! You're not babies anymore!"  
With a chuckle, the girl called Titania turned to glance at the form.   
"You and Orb had ANOTHER fight?" she questioned cynically.  
Blue eyes widened for a split second as the curly-haired blonde placed  
her free hand on a hip. "It's not our place to ask!" she snapped in a   
motherly tone, glaring daggers at the younger girl. "What happens with the   
Guardians is their business, not ours!"  
"And if any of the Guardians were Shakespearean scholars, it would be   
your business, Callisto," smirked the shimmering silver. "But, yes, we did."  
There was a short flash, and a calico cat suddenly appeared where the human-  
shaped molten color had been. A silver star sparkled on her forehead. "And I  
think we should go make up."  
It was all Titania could do to keep from giggling.  
Claude furrowed his little brow and tugged on his older sister's   
dress. "What's so funny about them making up?" he asked innocently, batting   
long eyelashes as his brown eyes sparkled.  
Callisto pursed her lips. "Nothing..."  
************  
  
A little girl, with long, straight tresses the color of molten gold,   
sat crossed legged on the carpeting, playing with two small dolls. She   
talked lovingly to each of them, her bright crimson eyes paying loving   
attention to the details of the female doll's purple-and-yellow sailor fuku   
as she made the other doll, this one male, wave a Time Staff around idly.  
Two forms watched amusedly from the doorway. The younger of the   
Earth's two Queens, Celeste Chiba, had restyled her hair long ago, but that   
didn't keep blonde strands of hair from falling into her entertained green   
eyes. Her companion, braid resting gingerly on a slender shoulder, was   
actually smiling, a rare occurrence, her pink lips curving slightly upward.   
"You know," commented Celeste in a low tone, "it wouldn't be so bad if  
she was wearing her gown OVER that slip."  
Ambriel, High Priestess of the Silver Moon, chuckled, and the child   
glanced up from her play to see the two women watching her intently. She   
dropped her dolls and hopped straight to her feet, clapping her hands   
together excitedly. "Mama!" she exclaimed, already beginning to rush   
forward.  
The young Queen raised a single eyebrow, and the child froze. Seizing   
the hem of her silken white slip, she curtseyed deeply, adverting eye   
contact. "Your Highness, my Lady the Ambriel," she greeted in a low tone,   
her tone pouring over with respect and reverence.   
"And then..." prompted the blonde woman.  
Raising her head in a single, snapping motion, the girl ran forward.   
"Mama!" she exclaimed excitedly, burying her head in the adult's skirts.  
With another little laugh, the angel-woman Ambriel stepped into the   
bedroom, taking in the bright pinks and golds that were color scheme. Her   
nose wrinkled. "How could you do this to the poor child?" she questioned,   
her normal sternness melting away effortlessly. "I'd hang myself if I lived   
in this room."  
Rolling her green eyes, Celeste pushed her daughter away gently,   
freeing her legs to follow the other woman. "Yes, well, Larissa LOVES her   
room." She glanced at her slip-clad daughter. "Right?"  
"Right!" chimed the girl with a grin.  
"Well, it's amazing," commented Ambriel as she removed a long, golden   
dress from its hanger and tossed it to her friend. "You actually married the  
boy you once really disliked and, now, you torture the child you had with   
him."  
Aiding Larissa in putting on the gown, the blonde woman rolled her   
eyes. "You're too hard on me!" she protested with a frown. "I try to be a   
good mother and wife!"  
The redhead smiled and plopped down in the single redwood rocking   
chair that sat in one corner of the room. She nodded, her expression almost   
turning sad as she glanced at her friend. "You do," she admitted softly,   
resting her hands on her flat stomach as she spoke. "That's why I think I'm   
so afraid of the coming Eve."  
"Yes, well..." Celeste's own hands flew to her rounded stomach. "But   
there will be new Galactic Sailors and a new Keeper to...keep, I suppose--"   
she frowned at the pun-- "the world safe from harm."  
Pink lips evened out into a stoic, pensive line. "And my child will be  
the heiress to a whole new religion, once she is born." She shook her head,   
pausing for a long moment. "I wish that the Silver Moon worked off of love   
and not logic," she commented offhandedly, staring at her friend as thin   
fingers pulled the child's zipper closed. "I envy what you have."  
"And you still have a good five months to FIND someone to love,"   
returned the older of the two adults, seizing a brush from her child's   
nightstand and pulling it through the girl's blonde tresses. "You can still   
seize the happiness you so WANT."  
"But I won't find it," sighed the other woman, shaking her head as she  
spoke. A few red hairs crept free of her braid and slipped into her gray   
eyes. "That's not the way the Silver Moon works."  
Tying a bright purple bow in her daughter's hair, the Keeper of the   
Nebulae frowned slightly, the edges of her lips creasing. "Well, you never   
know," she countered, a hint of annoyance in her voice.   
Ambriel pursed her lips. "I think," she responded, "I do."  
************  
  
"I'm sorry we can't come to the Queen's party," sighed the young   
woman, brushing a strand of sky-blue hair from her face as she frowned, "but  
LOOK at this paperwork!" Slender hands gestured to various piles of folders,  
binders, and loose-leaf sheets of paper. "We have five THOUSAND applications  
to the priestly academy. Can you IMAGINE?" She chuckled at herself, silver   
eyes flaring with mirth. "And we entered another female into the ranks of   
sixth priest today, and I think she really has potential."  
Rubbing his chin, the eternally young man chuckled and leaned back in   
his seat. "It's interesting to hear you talking so excitedly about Elysion,"  
he commented, blue eyes focused on the holographic screen through the thin   
lenses of his glasses. "So, how many females do we have now? Twenty?"  
She raised a thin eyebrow. "WE?" she asked cupping her cheek in a   
hand. "I thought you were ruling the whole Solar System now, 'Master.'" He   
frowned, brow creasing, and she laughed, pursing her pink lips. "Twenty-  
four, actually, but only three are sixth priest or higher." She shook her   
head. "It's amazing that more women don't take it seriously."  
"There's already one Abigail in the world, so I really don't think we   
need twenty-three MORE," the man retorted coolly, the ice in his tone hiding  
the amusement in his smile. "But how is Brice? And the boys?"  
The High Priest of Elysion rolled her bright eyes. "Blythe and Carson   
could cause ANYONE to gouge their eyes out," she sighed with a shake of her   
head. "Those to fight more than your daughters!"  
There was a crash from the next room, followed by yelling. He closed   
his eyes. "I doubt that..."  
"But Brice is fine." Abigail shrugged noncommittally. "I really wish   
that we could come, you know," she stressed, staring straight at him. "The   
one time I met the Queen, she was very sweet, Helios, and I think that I'd   
like to wish her a happy birthday..."  
"And you KNOW her daughter has a crush on Blythe," retorted the King   
of the Solar System with a slight raise of his eyebrows. "And wouldn't that   
put you in a good position?"  
She groaned. "I don't want to hear this..."  
"Your son marrying the heiress to the Earth, and then you'd rule both   
Elysion AND Earth!" Helios leaned back in his seat, resting his hands behind  
his head. "Wouldn't THAT do you well?"  
Abigail wrinkled her nose. "And WHEN, exactly, does your shuttle get   
to Earth?"  
"Another ten minutes."  
"So you'll have to turn off all electronic appliances soon, right?"  
"Don't you even--"  
The screen before him went black, and a chuckle was heard as all sound  
connection was cut off.   
There was ANOTHER crash from the next chamber, and voices carried   
through the thin door between the two rooms.   
"Now we can't finish our chess game!"  
"I don't care, FANGIRL, because I was going to win!"  
"You little brat! You say that to my fist!"  
"Girls..."  
"You wanna take ME?"  
"You bet, BUTCH."  
"Butch? This from the girl who said that a babe was cute?"  
"EVERYBODY thinks Katsuragi Misato is hot! It's the best part of EVA!"  
"What language are you talking?"  
"Why you..."  
Sighing, Helios closed his eyes. "To think," he moaned to himself,   
"that I gave up Elysion for THIS..."  
************  
  
"We're home!" announced a loud voice, and--before her elder sister   
could so much as scowl--Rhea Hartford had pulled off her heeled shoes and   
started into the seeming palace that was really a house. Depositing items   
like her purse, hairbrush, and car keys all along the tile hallway, she made  
a beeline for the kitchen, yellow dress rustling all the way.  
Delaney closed her purple eyes and calmly slipped off her own shoes,   
sighing. "Sometimes," she confided in the burgundy-haired one beside her, "I  
wonder if I'm related to that girl."  
Sharon Chiba chortled at that comment, long legs carrying her quickly   
down the hallway, her friend just steps behind. "I wonder the same thing   
about Aeris and me," she returned, her alto lilt booming in her chest. She   
pursed her lips thoughtfully, brows furrowed as she thought silently. "I   
suppose," she continued in a more subdued tone, her manner proof positive   
that she was related to the enigmatic Mistress of Time, "that it's one of   
the main reasons I love my sister so much."  
The raven-haired one rolled her bright eyes, sighing. "Please, Sharon,  
you ALWAYS complain about Aeris," she reminded the younger woman in   
annoyance.  
"Maybe I do," retorted the taller woman, twirling a long strand of   
burgundy hair around one of her slender fingers. "But, when push comes to   
shove, I'm there for her."  
Pushing open the door to the kitchen, Delaney smiled gently at her   
friend, reaching up the six inches between them to ruffle already mused   
hair. "You're strange," she praised, her violet eyes twinkling, "but you're   
my best friend nonetheless."  
"Yeah, RIGHT," chortled a voice, and the oldest of the trio turned to   
see her younger sister sitting at the kitchen island, drowning some sort of   
ice cream in chocolate syrup. "You should be in the market for a few new   
friends!"  
There were footfalls and the rustle of thick skirts, and--before the   
last young woman could protest--the bowl of ice cream had disappeared from   
under her nose.  
Delaney smiled as the adult, her long, straight tresses pulled into a   
high, elegant twist atop her head, dumped the entirety of the sweet into the  
sink. Her gown, its violet color so very dark that it almost glittered black  
in the light, swept over linoleum as she removed the jug of chocolate sauce   
from her daughter's grasp and plopped it down upon the countertop. "All that  
crap will rot your teeth, Rhea," scolded the Mistress of Saturn, resting her  
fists on slender hips. "Your grandmother isn't here to spoil you, so I   
expect you to eat better."  
"And, besides, all that sugar and fat isn't good for your weak heart,"  
scolded the older Hartford girl, immediately snapping into her 'mother-hen'   
mode. With her hands, too, resting on her hips, she looked quite the twin of  
her mother, and Sharon stifled a laugh.  
Like Mistress, like soldier.  
Pouting, Rhea crossed her arms over her small chest and tried her best  
to look offended. "I'm EXTREMELY sick of fat-free frozen soy yogurt," she   
informed the group in a sour tone. "I understand that I should be careful,   
but WHY did my sister have to be allergic to milk?"   
The offended expression that she'd screwed her face into, however,   
brought a smile to all four female faces, and Hannah Hartford immediately   
caved in, placing the miraculously unscathed bowl before the moping young   
woman. "I suppose a LITTLE ice cream won't do too much damage," she sighed,  
defeated, as she collapsed into a chair at the nearby table. "After all, if   
you've really been good about sweets..."  
"An angel," murmured Rhea through mouthfuls of her treat.  
Her mother glanced at the duo leaning against the wall, one eyebrow   
raised.   
"An angel," they echoed solemnly, nodding.  
"At least there's one around here," grumbled a brunette from the   
doorway, taking no time in trudging into the kitchen and practically   
throwing herself at the nearest seat. "Vera and Vesta were at it AGAIN,   
today..." She shook her head, chin-length tresses brushing her face as she   
did so. "Those two fight like cats and dogs, and I really don't know how to   
stop them."  
Chuckling slightly, Hannah cupped her chin in a hand. "And where, pray  
tell, are my two favorite nieces?" she asked sweetly, her large purple eyes   
staring directly at her younger sister. "I didn't hear them come in after   
you."  
Haley Hartford rolled her aqua eyes. "Eric decided that they should   
sit in the car with him until they vow to get along with one another."  
"Which means they'll never get along," quipped Rhea with a grin, ice   
cream rimming her thin lips. "Right, Auntie?"  
Delaney sighed and tossed her sister a napkin. "Pig," she muttered.  
An ice-cream-covered tongue was stuck out in response.  
Glancing down at her watch, the burgundy-haired beauty frowned. Her   
dress, an azure color that rivaled even the awesome color of the sea,   
creased as she crossed her long arms over her ample chest. "We're going to   
be late," she scolded in her deep, rumbling voice, bright green eyes darting  
about the kitchen. "Where IS that Brian man, anyway?"  
The Mistress of Saturn laughed good-naturedly at her 'cousin.' The   
annoyance was only mock, and it was that certain relaxing normality that she  
had missed. Ever since the other Mistresses had..."departed" was the   
preferred word...the house had been quiet. And then, once the college-bound   
duo of Rhea and Sharon had left to live with her older daughter... It was a   
big house, and lonely.  
"That Brian man," sighed the blonde, striding into the kitchen, busily  
straightening his purple bow tie, "is right here." He frowned, the little   
tie crooked. "Hannah..." he whined with the wrinkle of his nose. "It's not   
WORKing..."  
Rolling her eyes, his wife stood and twisted his tie gently. It was   
suddenly straight, causing the man to frown further. "You are incorrigible,"  
she teased, touching her nose to his with a grin curving her lips.  
Rhea stopped shoveling the ice cream into her mouth. Delaney smiled   
wistfully, leaning back against the wall. Sharon murmured something that   
sounded distinctively like 'cute.'  
But Haley pushed away from the table, kicking her chair as she started  
out the kitchen. "I'll see you two love birds at the Palace," she grumbled,   
trudging out of the kitchen.  
The blonde man laughed and pulled his wife further into his arms,   
copper eyes following the younger woman out of the kitchen. "What's that all  
about?" he questioned.  
"You know Auntie Haley," grinned the ice cream eating Hartford girl,   
liking her fingers. "She STILL hates mush, husband or not."  
"I'll never understand her," stated Hannah, weaseling her way out of   
her husband's grasp and starting for the front door. "She's just so   
STRANGE."  
Sharon shrugged. "Some would say the same about you or me or Rhea,"   
she commented nonchalantly.  
Raising an eyebrow, Delaney shot a look at her friend. "And me?" she   
asked coyly.  
The maroon-haired one patted her shorter friend on the head. "You're   
just fine," she grinned. "Perfect."  
The black-garbed woman laughed.  
************  
  
"I don't like surprises," he stated as he stood in front of the   
mirror, eight eyes staring straight at him as he spoke. "I'll pick her up   
from the conference and that's exactly what she'll say to me, mark my   
words." He straightened his silver bow tie idly, checking and double-  
checking his reflection to make sure he was flawlessly perfect. "I know her   
too well."  
A silver cat, brow alit with a golden star, cocked her head to one   
side. Dark whiskers bristled a bit. "I don't--erm, 'do not'--know R--Your   
Majesty," thought the animal aloud, studying her paws rather guiltily. "She   
was awfully--I mean, she was 'VERY'--excited for her birthday this morning,   
and she KNOWS you and her sis--the younger...Lesser?...Queen--were cooking   
SOMETHING up." She wrinkled her nose. "Right?"  
"But, then AGAIN," argued a cat with fur of a green-black tint with   
just a HINT of annoyance in her voice, "she is still a very stubborn woman   
when she gets it in to her head to be."  
Another small animal, tan in color, shook its head. "I disagree," came  
the deep reply as the only male cat in the group glanced up at the tall,   
redheaded man. "Stubborn or not, she always aims to please, so perhaps she   
would allow this from His Majesty."  
The last of the cats, a rather chubby black animal with a bright   
silver moon perched upon its brow, rolled her blue eyes. "WHATEVER,   
Galileo," she responded to the tan one's commentary. "You KNOW how Lyra   
gets, and she's not going to let Richard get away with it."  
Three pairs of bright, slanted cat's eyes--green, lavender, and   
crimson respectively--turned to gape at the last animal. She was lounging   
rather languidly on the windowsill in the royal dressing room, whereas her   
siblings were all sitting in a row at the foot of the silvery mirror. Her   
azure eyes were half-closed, her paws limply hanging off the sill, and it   
would have taken an expert to realize that the animal was not asleep.  
But the trio of Guardian Cats on the floor realized it.  
Sighing, the Guardian of the Silver Moon sat up and yawned, baring her  
long, white fangs. "Go ahead," drawled she, the look on her face one of   
complete, utter, and TOTAL annoyance, "yell at me." Silence ensued. "No,   
really," she insisted, gazing across the rough six feet that separated her   
from the others. "I mean REALLY scold me." Upon getting no reply, she rolled  
her eyes once again. "Come ON, you guys! I used the King and Queen's REAL   
names! I used a contraction! And I didn't beg pardon in time!"  
The green-furred cat hung her head. "I do not BELIEVE that she was   
part of the same litter we were," Ara muttered in the rough direction of her  
two siblings.  
"I sorta--I mean, I suppose--that she could be related to the rest of   
us," blundered the silver one, gently biting the very tip of her pink   
tongue. "I have the same kinds of trouble with talking so very grown-up..."   
She bristled at her own words. "That is to say, I also find myself searching  
for the correct words with which to grace Their Majesties."  
Lavender and red eyes closed in exasperation at the same exact   
moments. Blue orbs just rolled.  
But the Elder King of the Earth chuckled, bending down in his tuxedo-  
clad splendor to scratch behind the ears of the silver Guardian. "I don't   
care how you talk to me," he assured the animal, cerulean eyes compassionate  
behind silver-rimmed glasses. "I consider you a friend, and my friends say   
whatever they wish to say to me."  
"Whether you like it or not, right Rich?" questioned the black animal   
from her nearby perch.   
Richard Umino straightened up, glancing right at Carina. "I can tell   
that you grew up with both the Ambriel and with Serenity," he chuckled, the   
amusement in his voice not at all lost on the Guardians. "You have that   
free-spirited attitude."  
"Attitude PROBLEM," groused the Guardian of Pluto through her gritted   
teeth. "When the next Ambriel is born, she's going to have QUITE the bad   
mouth."  
"Blah blippity blah," retorted Carina, wrinkling her pink nose. "At   
least MY charge is going to GIVE her position an heiress!"  
The King and the other two cats chuckled.  
But Ara scowled. "That is NOT funny in the least," she pointed out   
angrily. "If Aeris does not present an heiress to the throne of Pluto, do   
you KNOW the trouble it could cause?" No one presented an answer in the mere  
second she was silent, so she continued. "Larissa cannot very well be fourth  
in line for the throne of Earth, tenth in line for the throne of the Solar   
System, *AND* the Heiress to Pluto!" She shot an extremely dirty look at her  
youngest, dark-furred sister. "If Their Majesties Serenity and Helios died   
with their heirs, and if Their Elder Majesties Richard and Lyra died with   
THEIR heirs--"  
"Don't you just feel the love in this room?" questioned the   
aforementioned man sourly.   
"AND if Their Lesser Majesties Peter and Celeste died along with   
Aeris, then it would leave Larissa in quite a position!" The Guardian of   
Pluto beamed proudly. "She would be the Keeper, the Guardian of Time, The   
Elder AND Lesser Queen of the Earth, the Queen of the Solar System, *AND*   
the leader of the coming Sailor Soldiers!"  
Cassiopeia held back a chuckle, her bright eyes glittering in mirth.   
"Never mind the fact that Ambriel and her coming daughter are somewhere in   
that twisted line of hierarchy before Larissa," she snorted, glancing   
innocently at the ceiling.  
Before the green cat could add a rant or three to the goings-on,   
Richard Umino stepped in. "Now, that's enough," he scolded, as though he was  
talking to a naughty child. "Ara, if a tragedy like that WERE to strike,   
I'm certain that the Galactic Sailors and their children would keep an eye   
on things and smooth the cracks in our pathetic government." He chuckled a   
bit to himself. "Or, if worse came to worse, our friend Delaney would just   
'Death Reborn Revolute' us all into the next millennium."  
Galileo frowned. "That's a pretty dark joke to come from you,   
Majesty," he commented tersely.  
"I know it is, but I couldn't restrain myself." Resting his hands on   
his hips, he glared at the trio of cats who were NOT going on and on about   
killing half of the royalty in the world. "And, as for the REST of you--"  
Ara couldn't even BEGIN to hide her complacent smirk.  
"--do NOT get your sister started!"  
And, as the green one scowled and the other three laughed, he tossed   
his cape and strode quickly from the dressing room.  
************  
  
"La la la!"  
She couldn't mask the grimace that crossed her face as she watched the  
crimson-garbed dancer sway about the ballroom.  
"Never give up! Ganbaru wa!"  
The equally tall brunette woman beside her, who was wearing a rather   
plain orange dress, raised a single eyebrow. "Lemme guess," she stressed in   
her normal, slightly sideways fashion. "Phoebe is upset about something   
and--instead of TALKING it out--she's drowning her woes in Triple Sect."  
"Kono shoubu ni kaketeru no!"  
"Close," responded the auburn-haired one, calmly taking a sip of her   
white wine. "She's drowning her woes in vodka this time."  
"Ukiuki tokimeku no!"  
Another woman, this one with the long raven tresses of a Japanese   
priestess, strode up to the duo. Her light green gown was plain--not as   
plain as that of the brunette beside her, but certainly not as extravagant   
as the silken navy gown of the one with the auburn waves or as the sequined,  
sparkling cinnamon outfit of the braid-headed one. Still, she was not plain   
in the least, what with her slightly slanted olive-colored eyes or her long   
hair that nearly shone violet in the bright lights of the ballroom. And the   
smile on her face was all but plain as she stared at the dancing, drinking   
mass she called a friend.  
"Still," she added to the discussion, "why would our dear friend drink  
herself silly instead of telling some of her closest companions?" She sighed  
wistfully. "It has been SO long since we were all together."  
"Shishunki eiji!"  
Haley Hartford grunted. "Dry UP, Tara," she shot, annoyed. "She's   
ALWAYS been like this."  
"She doesn't EVER talk to us," agreed Alice Walker with a solemn nod.   
"Why would she want US when she has Paris and the movies?"  
"Kakikae OK!"  
Tara Yoshiko's eyebrows knitted together in confusion. "Wait," she   
pushed into the scathing rebuke, lost to her friends' comments. "Are you   
saying that Phoebe Urawa--THE Phoebe Urawa of stage and screen--has a   
drinking problem?"  
"Koi suru purofiiru!"  
A sort of milky chuckle floated through the air. "I don't think that's  
what she's saying at all, really," put in the Queen of the Solar System, her  
bright red eyes glistening as she stood slightly behind her troupe of fellow  
Galactic Sailors. "What she's saying is that Phoebe has a problem confiding   
in us." She shook her head as the blue-braided one began to scream-sing 'The  
Rainbow Connection.' "I think she always did."  
"IS IT THE SWEET SOUND THAT CALLS THE YOUNG SAILORS?"  
"But what do you do?" questioned a deep, stern voice, and none of the   
quintet of Scouts had to turn around to know that the Guardian of Time was   
beside them, sipping daintily from a teacup of Sakae. "You can't very well   
scold her, and you can't very well force her to open up..."  
"So we join in?" questioned a still befuddled Tara, blinking. The   
other four women glanced amusedly at her, and she wrinkled her tanned nose.   
"Well, I'm certainly lost!"  
There was a chortle coming not from the group. "She's ALWAYS been   
lost," added in a sixth voice as Celeste Chiba strode up to the group, armed  
with a can of diet soda where the others had various alcoholic beverages.   
She was flanked by her husband on one side and the Angel of the Moon, the   
Ambriel of the Silver Moon Kingdom, on the other. Tagging reluctantly along   
was a tiny blonde girl who was very much the clone of her mother. "It's   
nothing all that new."  
"THE VOICE MIGHT BE ONE IN THE SAME!"  
"And so her Lesser Highness graces us," murmured Sailor Pluto half-  
heartedly, taking another swig of her drink. "I see you and Peter are   
getting along again?"  
The young man, dressed in a black tuxedo trimmed with crimson, scowled  
at his sister. "What ARE you drinking?" he questioned warily as she gulped   
down another mouthful of her beverage. "Don't tell me its Sakae AGAIN."  
Brushing a strand of hair from her colorful eyes, the woman neither   
confirmed or denied the accusation.  
"I'VE HEARD IT TOO MANY TIMES TO DENY IT!"  
"We're all together once again," Ambriel stated, her smooth voice   
drifting and echoing across the room as she smiled at the cluster of   
Galactic Sailors. "It's been far too long."  
"It has," echoed the navy-garbed woman softly, sending a sweet glance   
toward the braided drunk. "And some of us have changed."  
"IT'S SOMETHING THAT I'M SU'POSED TO BE!"  
The Queen of the Solar System glanced at the woman who could be called  
her child and sighed, a wistful smile crossing her face. "But we change for   
the better, do we not?" she asked rhetorically, brushing her own bangs with   
a hand, fingers tracing gently over the golden moon sigil upon her brow.   
"It's for the best and the worse, and for the children."  
"AND SOMEDAY I'LL FIND IT! THE RAINBOW CONNECTION!"  
All nine of the warriors, the now adult soldiers, glanced across the   
room to where a cluster of boys and girls were playing and talking. There   
was a tall, thin teen, her unyielding green eyes sparkling as she brushed   
dark brown tresses from her face. Beside her was a curly-haired teen, her   
eyes rimmed with small glasses and nose wrinkling as she laughed. Attached   
to this young woman's legs was a little boy with straight blonde tresses,   
clad in a tuxedo.   
Only a few feet away stood a girl with straight, chin-length red   
tresses, talking softly with a tall brunette girl and a shorter, green-  
gowned girl. There were all about the same age, and they smiled and laughed   
together as though they had been friends forever.   
A boy with dark brown hair and blue eyes sat cross-legged on the   
ballroom floor, building a castle out of Legos.  
Seated at a small, circular table nearby were three young women. Two   
were garbed in the traditional white gowns of the Gold Moon kingdom, and   
their tresses were pulled into the well-known style that every moon   
princess, past and present, had worn. The third young woman, slightly older   
than the others, brushed a blonde hair from her eyes and smiled as she   
talked with her friends.  
"The heirs and heiresses," breathed the Shinto woman, pursing her lips  
nervously. "They're all here, aren't they?"  
Serenity, known as Reeny, nodded impassively. "Moon, Mars, Jupiter,   
Venus, Uranus, Neptune..." She sighed. "And, of course, there is already   
Delaney..."  
"And not all of them know," stated Haley blandly, sipping her   
margarita from a straw. Several confused glances floated her way, and she   
shrugged. "What? Have you ever MET Vesta?" she questioned quickly, throwing   
up her hands. "She's got the whole 'resentment of destiny' thing down   
already and I certainly don't want to burst her bubble!"  
There were a few chuckles.  
"THE LOVERS, THE DREAMERS, AND ME!"  
Just then, a young guard popped his head into the doorway. "The Queen   
and King have arrived!" he announced. "They'll be here any minute!"  
"Then we've got to hide!" yelped Reeny, grabbing Ambriel and Tara by   
the wrist and pulling them toward a corner of the room."  
Alice sighed and shook her head. "And I'll go knock some sense into   
Phoebe," she volunteered, starting toward the drunken woman.  
"You know," commented Haley with a wrinkle of her nose, "I thought we   
were more dignified than THIS."  
Tara laughed aloud. "Never."  
And the room went dark.  
************  
  
"This is BORING."  
"Shut UP, would you? You've been belly-aching this entire time, and   
it's not getting you anywhere!"  
"But why do we have to WATCH? I've got a nice warm bed waiting for   
me!"  
Smack!  
"Okay, right... They're the Galactic Sailors, they're our children,   
yeah..."  
Sigh.  
"They've really succeeded. They're adults, they're to be mistresses."  
"They've given the world heirs."  
A pause. Another sigh.  
"It's amazing how fast these children have grown."  
"All that's left is an heir to Pluto and an heir to Mercury."  
"And Sharon can fulfill the role of Plutonian heir if she must."  
Confused looks.  
"What? Don't you think that I would have set up a clause like that? I   
don't want to see everything saddled on my only granddaughter!"  
A chuckle.  
"That's right--Larissa is your granddaughter too, isn't she?"  
"Well, duh!"  
Wallop.  
"Ouch! Sets, cut it OUT!"  
"Shh... She's coming."  
"She hates surprises."  
"I don't believe that my daughter got drunk..."  
Another chuckle.  
"Hey, Michi, it reminds me of the time that there was that Christmas   
party and--"  
CLOBBER!  
"Ow ow ow! Come ON, I was just kidding."  
Laughter.  
"And you shut up, Pluto boy. Don't think I won't kick the shit out of   
you."  
Guffaws.  
"You're toast!"  
Pounce! A scuffle.  
Sigh.  
"And I thought this would be easier than when we were Mistresses."  
"Nothing is ever easy."  
************  
  
"I don't like surprises," she muttered irritably, her footfalls   
echoing on marble as she trudged down the hall. A small nose wrinkled.  
A hand ran through long brown-blonde curls. A sigh...   
Her companion, a tall man with dark red hair and calm blue eyes,  
shook his head to himself. "I TOLD the cats that you'd say that," he   
informed the young woman as he led her by the hand. "They didn't   
believe me."  
She suppressed a chuckle. "You mean to say that you discussed   
your plans with my sister AND the Guardian Cats?" she gaped, amusement  
trilling in her tone. "Richard, I am impressed! Do the children know   
about this?"  
The Elder King of the Earth smirked complacently. When his wife   
was impressed, she was really, truly IMPRESSED. "Callisto was   
orchestrating most of it," he admitted, glancing down at the short,   
blindfolded woman. "Between her and Celeste, all things are possible."  
"Venus and the Keeper," mumbled the Queen to herself, lips   
pursed. "Just as it was in the past."  
Sighing slightly, the eternally young man tightened his grip on   
his wife's hand. "You mustn't worry so much about Callisto," he   
chided, his voice cheery and hiding his overlying concern. "She's   
sixteen, and she's quite a strong girl. She'll be able to save the   
world."  
A nose wrinkled. "And the others?' she questioned icily, free   
hand freeing her angry chestnut eyes from the blindfold. She glared up  
at the taller man, her glower as terrifying as if she were twenty feet  
tall. "What about the other girls, Richard?" she growled, her inquiry   
hardly rhetorical. "Larissa is five. Elara and Vesta are fourteen.   
And the Eve is in less than a year." The coldness in her tone was   
indescribable.  
"Today," returned the King, trying his hardest not to seem as   
upset as he was slowly becoming, "let's focus on happiness and your   
42nd birthday."  
Lyra Star Umino scowled, her blonde eyebrows knitting together.  
"I'm THAT old?" she questioned dryly, allowing herself to once again   
be led down the hallway toward a pair of enormous marble doors. Seeing  
a smirk cross her husband's face, she playfully smacked him in the   
stomach. "It's not like you're much younger!" she rebuked him, resting  
her free hand on a slender hip. "You're 46 this year, right?"  
"But I still have my looks," he retorted evenly, not slowing in   
his steps. "Unlike SOME wrinkled old women I know."  
"WRINKLED OLD WOMEN?!" She reared back, her eyes widening.   
"Dammit, Richard, you and I BOTH know that Sailor Soldiers don't age!"  
But he completely ignored her and threw open the two mighty   
marble doors.  
"SURPRISE!"  
************  
  
"Here comes the party!"  
A grin.  
"Mamo-chan no party! Demo Engo..."  
A roll of blue eyes.   
"Har har har, Sere."  
A puzzled frown.  
"I don't get it."  
"Be quiet."  
Wallop!  
"EOWCH! Sets, just 'cause I didn't hang out around Tokyo when I   
was in junior high doesn't make me stupid!"  
Sigh.  
"I'm sorry. I'm just depressed."  
Pause, silence.  
"About loosing the children?"  
The clasp of a hand.  
"About Aeris being unhappy. About Phoebe being afraid. About   
Lyra getting old."  
"Shouldn't that be Mina's department?"  
The tug of a pigtail.  
"Hey! Raye, what was THAT for?"  
"Just making sure that your meatballs were on straight!"  
A chuckle.  
"Do you EVER change?"  
The shake of a head.  
"Not often. None of us do."  
More silence.  
"The winds of change..."  
"The seas are restless..."  
"You two and your damned elements."  
WHACK! SLUG!  
"Owwie! Leets, they're hitting me!"  
"And you don't deserve it?"  
A frown.  
"Stop being right."  
The uneasy restlessness passing over the skies.  
"I miss them."  
A hand raked through blue hair. The pursing of a raven-tressed   
Shinto's lips. A brunette leaning against her one true love. A blonde   
cupping her chin in a hand. Short, sandy locks blowing in a light   
wind. Aquamarine waves hiding the tears of blue eyes. The sigh of a   
green-haired woman.   
The slight smile of a Queen.  
"And so do I."  
************  
  
"I'm a bitch, I'm a lover, I'm a child, I'm a mother... HICCUP!"  
High-heeled shoes echoed on marble as she dragged the woman by   
the wrist. Drunken singing endlessly cascaded in waves over, under,   
and across the duo as they trudged down the hall. Vodka occasionally   
splashed out of a small cup and splattered on the floor.  
"I'm a sinner, I'm a saint, I do not feel ashamed!"  
The woman who was in control of her smashed friend brushed a   
strand of hair from her brown eyes. Inwardly, she was chuckling at the  
strange irony of her companion's singing choice.  
Outwardly, she was scowling and grunting, trying to find a   
secluded place to slap some sense into her friend.  
"I'm your Hell, I'm your dream, I'm all that's in between!"  
Throwing open what seemed to be the fiftieth door in the great   
marble hallway, she dragged both herself and the drunken one into what  
appeared to be a small tea room. Plush couches and dainty tables meant  
to serve watercress sandwiches were tucked into each nook and cranny,   
giving a certain pristine look to the place.   
It was the best she could very well do.   
"You know you wouldn't have it any other way!" Ice blue eyes   
seemed to dart back and forth as the young woman took a long swing of   
her drink. "Did da like me thsinging, Alithse?"  
The auburn-haired woman took a deep breath, closing her eyes.   
Slowly, calmly, she unclenched one of her fists and brought one hand   
slowly into the air.  
SLAP!  
"Ouch!" yelped the braid-headed one, immediately doubling over   
in pain. One hand was clutched to a large, swelling red mark on her   
left cheek, and salty tears were trailing down her pale face. "What   
in the name of GOD was THAT for?"  
And it was at that precise moment that Alice Aurora Walker   
broke down.  
"Fuck it all, Phoebe, you know EXACTLY what that's for!" she   
swore, the hate in her eyes both harsh and unforgiving. "Just cut all   
this shit out and tell me what the fuck is wrong with you!" She gulped  
back tears. "I'm still Alice, dammit! I'm still your best-fucking-  
friend!"  
The navy-haired one stared at her friend.  
Her friend glared back.  
There was silence.  
************  
  
"SURPRISE!"  
She jumped back, nearly tripping over the hem of her gown as the  
room flared to life. Lights lit each nook and cranny of the Royal   
Ballroom, and the unreal glow lit her face. People, other human   
beings, filled the room; people who she would call friends, people she  
would call children, people she would call destined, people she would   
call her beloved.  
And they began to sing.  
"Happy birthday to you..."  
Her footfalls were shaky, actually shaky, as she strode toward   
the enormous cake in the center of the room. It nearly stretched to   
her height of five feet, and the silky, white frosting and almost   
unreal pink trim made it all the more mouthwatering.  
She inwardly cursed Alice Walker. That woman KNEW she was on a   
diet.  
"Happy birthday to you..."  
Still, she managed to smile and hold back the tears of joy that  
flooded her eyes. Her gown, a precisely silver dress with a rope-like   
trim of white, crimson, and gold, swept her ankles as she stepped   
toward the cake. Her brown eyes glanced about the room, focusing on   
adult and child alike, silently thanking everyone.  
"Happy birthday, dear Lyra..."  
She didn't even miss a step when she realized that both Alice   
and Phoebe were missing, but her certainty wavered. Where could they   
be? The former woman's two children and annoying husband were both   
present, so it wasn't as though she'd up and left. But, on second   
thought, the braided goofball had ALWAYS followed the lead of her   
older friend.  
Her brow furrowed, and she could hardly repress the urge to rake  
a hand through her curls. They were missing. On her birthday. And that  
made HER miss THEM.  
But she forced that out of her mind.  
"Happy birthday to you!"  
Picking up a knife that had been left beside the birthday cake,   
she cut herself a very, VERY thin slice and plopped it onto a plate.   
The sweet smell of pure chocolate wafted into her nostrils.  
Alice was a walking dead-woman.  
Her audience, could they be called that, began to clap   
excitedly. She smiled a second time and dipped a finger into the   
thick, fluffy frosting, licking it carefully off the tip. It was only   
a moment before her husband strode up beside her, a hand gently   
slipping around her waist for an embrace.  
"Do you still hate surprises, love?" Richard asked softly as all  
her friends still clapped or, in the select case of one pink-haired   
Queen, hooted and hollered.  
She reached up and, still grinning, wiped the remaining icing   
on her destined's nose. He frowned slightly at her antics, a bit   
confused.  
"You may be the most INCREDIBLE man I've ever met," she replied   
coyly, "but I still do."  
************  
  
The silence was almost tangible. It was that kind of heavy,   
forbidding silence that she'd always been most afraid of. Sometimes,   
the only reason she was so loud...so dramatic...was to wash over the   
silence.  
A brown-eyed glare didn't waver as she fingered the red mark on  
her cheek. It ached something dreadful, hurting more than any wound   
she'd ever sustained from being a Sailor Soldier. Salty tears,   
forbidden tears, coursed down her face and eventually dripped off her   
chin.  
She let them.  
"You want to know what's wrong?" she whispered, returning the   
intense glower in kind, her icy eyes pushing away the tears and   
replacing them with a certain kind of fearlessness. "Well, I'll tell  
you." She took her hand away from the slap mark and took a deep   
breath.   
Her 'best-fucking-friend' stared back.  
Time stood still. Not a word was exchanged.   
Fist clenched at sides. A glare of chestnut began to soften.   
Tears halted.  
And then, like so many panes of glass, the silence was   
shattered.  
"God, Alice, isn't it obvious?" The scathing question bit at the  
air, slicing through the delicate quiet. "Can't you see that I'm a   
failure?" Phoebe's icy scowl had yet to waver, and those foreboding,   
light-blue eyes were relentless in trying to read the expression of   
the other woman.   
But a mask, a soldier's mask, was in the place of true feeling.   
A façade, the façade of a seasoned warrior, took the position of   
caring and concern.  
And she couldn't penetrate that with anything beyond her words.  
She was an actress, though, the Queen of Screen and Stage. And   
that could either make or break the goings on.  
In theory, it would break them.  
"For twenty-five years," she continued irritably, the level of   
cold hatred in her voice neither raising or falling, "I have been   
running around the world like I was still a little kid." She took   
another deep breath, tears suddenly nipping at her eyes. What was   
this? She was supposed to control the situation! She was supposed to   
be the Queen of Fake Emotions! She was the dramatic one! She was an   
actress!  
Alice took a wary step forward, reaching out a hand. For the   
first time, the stubborn, iron resolve that was the determination of   
a Sailor Scout cracked. A gentle, caring gaze replaced the stern   
stare. "Pheebs..."   
But the braid-headed one wrenched away from her friend's soft   
hand, backing herself into the closed door. "Don't touch me!" she   
shrieked, shutting her eyes to hold back the tears. "I don't deserve   
the sympathy of the real Galactic Sailors!"  
"You can't do this to yourself," whispered the auburn-haired   
one, already wide-eyed from the sudden show of terror. "You can't   
think that you're such a failure..."  
The absolutely menacing glower of a loathing woman returned,   
the orbs of ice lowered to slits. "You can damn well say that," shot   
back Phoebe coolly, her will and flint returning to the place where a   
strange sort of fear used to be. "In fact, it does you GOOD to say   
that!" She brushed a strand of loose hair from her face. "You've   
found your shitty destiny, Alice... You've got your heiress... You've   
even got your duo of kids in your fucking house with your two cars,   
three TV sets, and microwave!"   
Tears welled up in the older woman's eyes as she slowly took a   
step back, one hand touching her heart, as though she'd just been   
violated. Her parched pink lips were pursed, but the lower one was   
just hardly quivering.   
The dams were going to burst.  
"And then," continued the angered thespian, her tone softening   
slightly and gaining a touch of regret, "there's me." She gulped, but  
a tear escaped and rolled down her pale cheek. "Look at me, Alice,"   
she croaked, trying desperately to clutch onto the last remaining bit   
of strength she had. "I have no destiny..." She took in a trembling  
breath, the gasp echoing through the room. "I have no heiress to   
Mercury..." Slowly, she closed her eyes and shook her head. "I'm just   
a world-famous dyke who acts like a two-year-old..."  
As soon as the last sentence escaped Phoebe's lips,   
enlightenment mentally slapped the auburn-haired one across the face.   
All signs of tears and melancholy faded away to amazement as she   
gaped at the slender, motionless woman. A tongue snaked across dry   
lips as she considered what had been said.   
And there wasn't all too much to consider.  
"Is that what this is all about?" questioned Alice Walker   
softly, running a single finger along the side-seam of her long navy   
gown. "Is this about you being a lesbian, Phoebe?"  
The actress nodded slightly. Then, she frowned and shook her   
head, eyes still closed.  
Then, just as anyone would have expected her to do at the tender  
age of seventeen, she sprang alive. Her already-clenched fists pounded  
on the smooth wood of the door before she began to pace nervously   
across the room... Her hands were in constant motion, though she   
didn't talk, moving at the approximate rate that her mind was going.   
The other one smiled.  
It was Phoebe, alright.  
"I don't KNOW what it's about!" admitted the animated one   
frantically, her face contorting in strange ways, as though each   
thought crossing her mid brought a new grimace to her features. "It's  
about me not having an heir. It's about me not being in love. It's   
about..." She froze, the answer bringing her entire form to a halt.  
Alice stared.  
And the blue-haired one's face fell. "It's about the fact that   
I never told the others," she breathed, twenty-five year's worth of   
logic finally coming together like so many pieces of a picture puzzle.  
A frown crossed her crimson lips as she smoothed the soft fabric of   
her dress. "I left for America right after your graduation," she   
whispered thoughtfully, glancing at her friend across the room rather   
guiltily. "And then I came back, and left for Europe right after   
Christmas time, and I--"  
"--haven't been back since," they finished together, a slightly   
wistful smile crossing her face. Silence, a strange yet sweet, washed   
over the both of them.  
Then, sighing, the braided one threw herself onto one of the   
couches, kicking her legs up on an arm. "Oh well," she sighed, closing  
her eyes as she spoke. "At least I have time to sober up before I tell  
them, no?"  
Alice blinked, both shocked and confused. "Sober up?" she   
questioned, starting. "You mean that wasn't all an act?"  
"Mon amie, there are can-can dancers kicking my frontal lobe,"   
she responded, tucking her hands behind her head as she spoke. "No   
act is THAT painful."  
"You never cease to amaze me," smiled the auburn-haired one,   
slowly sinking into a chair.   
One ice-blue eye cracked open. "Frankly," retorted the Parisian   
Japanese woman, "I amaze me, too."  
************  
  
"I've never understood that woman," sighed the tall Shinto,   
taking a slightly apprehensive sip of her white wine. Her olive eyes   
were focused on the grandeur mural that was stretched across the   
ceiling, seeming to taking in every last detail of the Senshi whose   
faces and powers spread across it. If one paid enough attention, it   
was possible to see that it was the tale of the original Sailor   
Senshi, their images forever immortalized in paint over wood.  
But Tara was not so much paying attention to story of those   
soldiers as she was to a smaller panel in the very center.  
In the center of the picture were the likenesses of six young   
girls.   
Each girl was, on her accord, quite unique. They were all about   
the same age--perhaps four, perhaps five, perhaps a bit older--and   
each had a tiny symbol upon her brow. All the symbols were different,   
as original as the child they stood for, and they seemed to glitter   
in the room's bright lights.   
A black-haired one with an Earth.  
A curly-haired blonde with a silver star.  
A blue-braided child with a crimson sun.  
An auburn-waved girl with a flag-like wave of light.  
A brunette with a comet.  
And, in the center of those five, a pink-bunned Princess with a   
crescent moon.  
Below the first-ever portrait of the six Galactic Sailors were   
three words, scripted in a strange color of black so impossibly dark   
that words failed description. It seemed to be so eerily ebony that it  
GLOWED.  
"For the children."  
"I mean," continued the woman, still staring at the sextet in   
the center of the ceiling, "I don't think she wanted us to understand   
her, but I always liked to pretend that I knew what was going on."  
Setting her empty margarita glass on the blue-clothed table,   
the slender brunette let out a long sigh. "Let's face it," she   
drawled in her strangely languid manner, her voice infliction lacking   
all emotion. "She's never been completely honest with us." She tucked   
her hands behind her head and leaned back in her chair, glancing   
upward and a small painted panel of Sailors Neptune and Uranus' last   
touch before losing their Star Seeds. For a moment, a slight burst of   
empathy flashed into her aqua eyes, but the mask of a soldier covered  
it all and that glimmer was gone in a heartbeat. "I always liked to   
think that we were all as close as we were SUPPOSED to be," she   
continued, her gaze fluttering down from above to rest upon the faces   
of her two companions, "but I don't think that ANY of us got too   
close."  
"I think we did," retorted the last woman, glancing across the   
room toward the Elder Queen of the Earth. Her red eyes sparkled with a  
strange sort of warm sadness as she watched the short blonde smile at   
her now-taller golden-tressed sister. "We didn't want to, but we   
did." She turned back to her friends, brushing a strand of curled   
pink hair from her face as she did so.  
Haley wrinkled her nose. Tara cocked an eyebrow.  
And the woman once known as Reeny, the woman now the sovereign   
Queen of the Solar System, chuckled slightly. "We all tried to   
protect ourselves," she pressed on, watching for the telltale signs of  
breaking façades, "but it never worked." She shook her head, smile   
becoming wistful. "We fell in a strange sort of love with one another,  
and we're just now realizing that we gave ourselves away without ever   
getting something in return."  
A slight, sad smile. A befuddled, but understanding, nod.  
"In a way, I think we're jealous of Phoebe." Reeny sighed and   
chewed reflectively on her lower lip, glancing upward. "She was able   
to protect herself from the rest of us. She used her uniquely thick   
skin to hide the real Phoebe from everyone else." She licked her l  
ips, as though her pink tongue was searching for words her mind   
couldn't find. "And I think that's part of why we're worried." Her   
crimson eyes roamed over the winged form of Eternal Sailor Moon. "We   
can't tell if this is real or not."   
Silence.  
"Well, I'm not certain myself," sighed Celeste, having long ago   
abandoned her Diet Coke for a large cup of skim milk. "Frankly, I   
think that there's something wrong with that woman."  
The curly-haired woman across from her poked a large square of   
cake with her fork, saying nothing. Her chestnut eyes were full of   
concern and worry, an emotion she was oft apt to feel. She had, years   
before, abandoned the stark policy of hiding emotions, and she'd   
wished her two daughters and little sister would do the same thing.   
However...  
However, she told herself silently, glancing occasionally   
upward at the impassive expression of her younger sister, all three   
were soldiers. They were born to hide behind masks, to abandon   
emotion, and they had certainly learned quickly how to do so. Even   
little Larissa, her crimson eyes so sweet and innocent, could turn   
cold in the blink of an eye.  
"Mommy has a kitty!" exclaimed the little girl, suddenly   
animated. It was as though she had heard her aunt's thoughts, and it   
caused Lyra to jump nearly a mile into the air. The woman gasped and   
stared down at the girl, as though she'd just seen a ghost.  
The five-year-old wasn't phased in the least. "Mommy has a   
pretty silver kitty!" she chirped, grinning madly. "Her name's   
Cassiopeia and she's VERY cute!"  
Sighing, as though trying to apologize, Peter hoisted the girl   
onto his lap with a slight grunt. "That's enough of THAT, young lady,"  
he scolded the child, a large hand running over her golden-haired   
head as he spoke. "You have to be quite while Mommy on Her Elder   
Majesty talk, okay?"  
Little Larissa pouted, crossing her arms over her chest. "Sorry,  
then, Majesty," she grumbled toward the curly-haired one before   
leaning back into her father's arms. "But Mommy DOES have a kitty."  
Lyra laughed a bit at the comment and nodded indulgently. "Thank  
you for telling me, Larissa," she responded with a sweet smile. "Now   
be quiet before your cranky father gets in a worse mood."  
The child grinned and clasped her hands together, as though her   
aunt had just told a wonderful joke. The brunette man frowned,   
eyebrows knitting together.  
And the woman who was the Keeper of the Nebulae smiled. "Yes,   
well," she picked up, trying to steer the conversation back to where   
it had previously been, "I think that she has some sort of problem."   
Pink lips curved into a frown. "I can't imagine what, though... She's  
always been so happy."  
"Perhaps that's the problem," responded Lyra after a well-  
placed pause had stretched between the two. She was greeted by a   
confused stare. "I think that we always expected Phoebe to be stronger  
than the rest of us," she continued thoughtfully. "And I don't think   
she is."  
"What's a Phoebe, Daddy?" chimed in a young voice.  
The man at Celeste's side groaned.  
The younger of the two women drew in a breath through her teeth,  
trying to make sense of her sister's slightly cryptic suggestion.   
"Perhaps so," she nodded, drawing her lower lip between her teeth for   
a brief moment, the silence washing over them. "But does that make it   
right for her to act like that?"  
Silence.  
"It's coming," stated the woman plainly, leaning against the   
wall as she took a long swig of the liquid in her teacup. As it stood,  
she was on her fourth cupful of the bitter, strong drink, but she felt  
absolutely nothing.  
It was almost disappointing.  
"And you say this as though it is a good thing," snapped a   
rather groggy Angel of the Moon, her gray eyes a strangely dark shade   
as she glared at the taller woman. "It's NOT, Aeris, and you damn   
well--"  
"Whoa," cut in the green-haired Scout, holding up a hand as   
though it would stop the verbal beating she was about to receive. "I   
didn't say ANYTHING like that." She frowned, her colorful eyes   
focusing on the redhead. "Are you alright?"  
Roles were reversed as the white-garbed one scowled and thrust   
herself into the nearest chair. "No," she stated plainly, her voice   
harboring a slight hint of poutiness. "I feel like crap."  
The Guardian of Time set her cup of Sakae down on the edge of a   
nearby table and picked up another, her motions smooth as silk. Her   
eyes never left the pale, gaunt face of her friend.  
One of her best friends. The word 'best' made her breath catch,   
and she tried to shake it away. Plutos did not feel emotion. Plutos   
did not fall in love. And Plutos... Plutos certainly did not have   
best friends.  
She glanced at the man beside her for just a brief moment,   
chuckling inwardly at the bewildered expression on his face. He'd   
asked, once, what was going to happen to Ariel and the other Galactic   
daughters, and she'd told him not to worry. It wasn't his duty, even   
if she did love him more than life itself. It was HER duty, as the   
Time Guardian, to worry about the goings on of the world. He would,   
someday, find himself a truly nice woman and fall in love with her...  
INSTEAD of worrying about the woman he was currently seeing, a   
pathetic waste of human life...  
Aeris frowned and wrinkled her nose, thirstily gulping down her   
Sakae. Her mother, bless her soul, would have murdered her for such   
thoughts.  
"The baby, is it?" she asked, pulling her mind off the feelings   
and ideas that, she knew, could not matter in the life of the Time   
Guardian. A weak nod was her only response, and she shrugged her   
shoulders toward it. "I can only imagine what it's like..."  
Ambriel clutched her stomach and forced a VERY timid smile.   
"It's morning sickness, except I think the rest of my body lives   
somewhere in Russia," she quipped in response, shaking her head   
slightly. A sparkle of life returned to her otherwise restless stormy  
eyes. "But I can't wait for her to be born, so it makes up for all   
the pain."  
The other woman cocked a head to one side, her crimson lips   
curving into a frown as she stared. "'Her?'" she repeated, gaping   
confusedly at her friend. "What in the word do you mean by that?"  
"I have to have a daughter," responded the redheaded woman.   
"Her name will be Arael--Arael Leilel, the Third Angel Moon to grace   
this universe--and she will rule my kingdom."  
Joshua, who had picked up a sudden interest in the conversation,  
turned to her. "Weird," he put in, pursing his lips.  
Aeris frowned. "Weird indeed," she murmured, ALMOST silent.  
Silence.  
"What do you mean by THAT?" he rebuked the man, his bright blue   
eyes glittering with anger as he glowered across the table. "Are you   
saying that I'm not fit to run the Solar System?"  
It was a normal occurrence, really; they had NEVER been on good   
terms. Now, certainly, they'd been forced to get along... The fate of  
the world, after all, had depended on that.   
But they didn't LIKE each other. They never had.   
He pushed his glasses up on his nose carefully, the single  
action almost challenging it its own right. The look in his eyes, the   
spark of anger and the glimmer of rivalry, was almost alluring...  
Or it would have been, had his opponent not been another man.  
"I'm not saying that at all, Helios," he responded coolly, the   
level of calm in his voice enough to send shivers up anyone's spine.   
"I was just saying that you, as Master of Elysion, really have no   
experience in dealing with a world sans magic."  
The other man ran a hand through his hair, taking a chance to   
let his mind pick apart the statement. That Richard had always been a   
smooth one... He wrinkled his nose in downright disgust. It made   
complete sense, of course, that such a placid, urbane man would be   
one of the Kings of the Earth. But he didn't have to LIKE him.  
Helios resisted the urge to drive a fist into the face of his   
adversary. "At least I wasn't having premarital SEX with my   
girlfriend."  
Mouth ALMOST falling open, Richard desperately searched for the   
right words. A blanch crept across his face, embarrassment snaked into  
the dark cobalt eyes, and amazement dotted his features. "I..."   
Recovering, he regained his glare and sneer. "Lyra and I did NOTHING   
immoral!" he shot back angrily. "We were destined, for Christ's sake!   
That's what destined people DO!"  
"Make whoopee?" laughed the King of the Solar System haughtily,   
brushing silver strands from his eyes as he raised an eyebrow at the   
redhead. "Or was THAT just extra-curricular?"  
Silence.  
Halfway across the room stood three MORE men, neither Kings nor   
confused, all their eyes focused on the large group of children.  
The tall Scandinavian man frowned slightly, watching as his   
dark-haired daughter laughed aloud. "To think that all this happiness   
and peace is going to come crashing to a halt," he stated softly, his   
voice full of some unnamed emotion. He pursed his lips for a moment,   
glancing from his daughter to his frowning Priestess wife. "I don't   
want to see them unhappy."  
"The rest of us don't want to see them like that any more than   
you do," added in the golden-brown haired man, sipping a beer as he   
crossed his legs. The orange bow tie he wore was crooked, but he made  
no attempt to correct it. "We've just got to accept this as an   
inevitable as part of life, you know."  
The last man, his dark brown hair falling into equally brown   
eyes, nodded solemnly. "Our daughters are going to be Scouts, too,"   
he informed the other two, as though they didn't know, "and we've just  
got to see them through it."  
There was a peal of laughter coming from the oldest of the   
girls, and she brushed a strand of golden hair from her eyes as she   
smiled at her newfound friends.  
"They're just now meeting," pointed out Sebastian questioningly,  
as though he didn't quite understand his own words. "Which means that   
the Eve will come..."  
"And we," Eric nodded, "will just have to wait."  
************  



	2. Destiny Waits for No Sailor

Epilogue II: Destiny Waits For No Sailor  
  
************  
  
"God, sometimes I don't BELIEVE those girls!"  
A scowl.  
"What NOW, pyro?"  
A glare of purple eyes.  
"Are you STILL mad about my earlier comment?"  
A pout.  
"Maybe."  
A roll of eyes.  
"I find THAT hard to believe..."  
Sighs of exasperation from other women.  
"Well, a LONG time ago, I found it hard to believe that someone   
as hot as Michelle here was g--"  
WHOMP!  
"Holy crap! That hurt!"  
A glower.   
"NO one calls my wife hot except me, understand?"  
A gulp and the rustling of a certain tan suit.  
"Hide me, Sets! She's gonna kill me!"  
"Well, Michelle isn't the only gay one... Right Amy?"  
A blush.  
"I never saw Phoebe like THAT..."  
Another blush.  
"I always KNEW that one of our daughters liked women!"  
A DEEPER blush and the laughter of a brunette.  
"No good can come of this..."  
A frown.  
"What's that, Suse?"  
"Nothing."  
"You have a PET NAME for her, Alex?"  
WALLOP!  
"Jesus, you jerk! STOP!"  
A sigh.  
"You DESERVED it, Ken."  
"Aw, shaddup."  
Silence. The blowing of blonde hair in the wind.  
"There will be good in the end, Susan. There will always be   
good."  
A sigh.  
"You say that now."  
The smile of a Queen.  
"If the fallen angel can become a saint, the Galactic Sailors   
can deal with an Eve."  
A smile. The glitter of crimson eyes.  
A frown.  
"Since when has that turret been broken?"  
The turns of several heads.  
"Damn! I thought I fixed that, too!"  
A pause.  
"NEVER send a woman to do a man's job."  
A glare.  
"You're SUCH a sexiest pig, Endymion!"  
A snicker.  
"You're just really butch!"  
Five nodding heads.  
"I agree!"  
"Me too!"  
"I'll help, big bro!"  
"I'll pitch in!"  
"Totally cool."  
The groaning of wives.  
"Greg..."  
"Ken..."  
"Terry..."  
"Andrew..."  
"Chad..."  
The ignorance of males.  
"We'll beat the dyke's repair job good!"  
SLUG!  
"OUCH!!!"  
************  
  
She sighed, bending over to pick up an overturned chair. Her   
face was pale, placid, as she smiled slightly at the sight her half-  
asleep father made. He was trying so hard to be so good, picking up   
after the umpteen guests that had roamed the ballroom that evening.   
But he looked like he would fall fast asleep at the drop of a hat.  
"What a party!" announced the blue-braided woman cheerily,   
twirling in a slow circle, her crimson gown swirling about her long   
legs. Her pink, pale lips were curved upward into a smile. "I never   
thought we could have such a good time!"  
The curly-haired blonde girl smiled more widely than before,   
her strawberry-gold tresses falling into her bright blue eyes as she   
straightened up and gazed at the woman. "Now, Miss Phoebe," she   
laughed aloud, watching the dancer twirl about the ballroom, "you're   
going to make another mess for us to clean up!"  
Phoebe frowned, stopping in her tracks as she saw the girl's   
eyes upon her. She leaped across the marble floor quickly, landing   
right before the teen. "Now, come ON Callisto!" she whined loudly,   
catching the girl's hands in hers. "Let's dance!"  
Giggling, the princess let herself be turned in quick, fast   
circles a few times before pulling from the grasp of the adult and   
stepping back. Phoebe, thrown off balance by the sudden lack of a   
partner, slipped and slid right into a line of chairs. They crashed   
over, and so did see.  
Callisto gasped and rushed over to the woman. "I'm SOOOO sorry!"  
she hurriedly said, completely chagrined as she offered forth a hand   
to the sprawled-out dancer. "Are you alright?"  
With a pained groan, Phoebe grabbed onto the girl's wrist,   
slowly hoisting herself back onto her feet. There was a laugh, high   
and pleasant, from across the room, and the dancer felt her icy eyes   
narrow dangerously toward the marble throne on the back wall.  
"Don't even," she grumbled, smoothing the long, soft folds of   
her gown. "If it were you, I wouldn't have laughed in the least."  
Lyra, Elder Queen of the Earth, brushed a curl of gold-brown   
hair from her face, a plastic fork hanging from her mouth as she   
chuckled at the disheveled woman. "Yeah, you wouldn't have laughed at   
me," she agreed with a slight nod, plunging the aforementioned fork   
deep into her cake before sending a meaningful look in her friend's   
direction. "After all, Richard would have beaten the crap out of you   
if you'd even smiled." Her brown eyes darted toward the eternally   
young man, who was folding a large tablecloth. "Right, snookums?"  
'Snookums' frowned slightly as she said this, nearly dropping   
the cloth as he turned to glance in her direction. "Yes, dear," he   
agreed tensely, glancing about the room, "but right now... Tita!" His  
brow furrowed. "I need to... Titania Kyoko!" His nose wrinkled as he   
set down the tablecloth on the nearest chair and rested his hands on   
his hips. "Where did that girl go?" he questioned tersely, a hint of   
anger in his deep voice.   
"She went to put Mistress Ambriel to bed," stated the curly-  
haired teen, bending over as she straightened the mess that she and   
Phoebe had made but moments before. "The Mistress doesn't feel very   
well, I don't think."  
Sighing, Celeste Chiba sat down on the armrest of her sister's   
throne, her pale face a mask of worry. "She's been sick a lot lately,"  
she responded to her niece's comment, voice soft. "Her pregnancy's not  
going as well as expected, and..."  
"Pregnancy?" Lyra gaped up at the tall blonde, her eyes wide as   
the proverbial saucers. "Since when has SHE been pregnant?"  
"Since the Silver Moon needed an heiress," put in Peter as he   
strode back and forth across the ballroom, an almost-sleeping Larissa   
cradled in his arms. "It won't be long now, and..." He shook his head   
a bit and trailed off.  
His little daughter, who had been sucking on her thumb, yawned   
and glanced sleepily at the Queen. "There has to be an Angel Moon,"   
she stated, the certain flinty tone of timelessness echoing in her   
young voice. "If the coming Eve is to bring ANY good..."  
Everyone froze in their different tasks, gazing across the room   
at the seemingly sweet blonde-haired girls. She smiled sweetly,   
innocent green eyes glittering with mirth, and Alice Walker found   
herself sighing from halfway across the room.   
"I think she has a point," she said with a slight bit of   
amusement. "There's always been some tradition to the hierarchy of   
the Sailor Soldiers..."  
Callisto smiled, a certain wistful quality to her expression as   
she leaned up against a nearby table, holding a centerpiece in her   
hands. "I think it will be nice to be a Soldier..."  
Suddenly, there was a new presence in the room, the strong   
stubbornness of a destined soul felt by all.  
There, in the doorway, stood Titania, her cobalt eyes rimmed   
with tears.  
"It will be for you!" she yelled, irritated. Her small fists   
were clenched tightly around the hem of her pajama shirt, and her   
face was the picture of hatred. Her slender shoulders shook, and she   
seemed to be trembling with all her might. Still, those dark eyes   
were focused at her sister, the strawberry-blonde teen the entirety   
of her focus. "It will be just fine and good for you to be a soldier,  
and you'll enjoy it just fine!"   
Gulping, Callisto pushed her small glasses up on her nose, her   
face perfectly innocent. "Tita, don't be like--"  
"No!" screamed the girl. "No! Don't chide me anymore! I'll   
NEVER be something special, never, and I want to be!"  
Then, turning on her heel, she ran quickly back down the hallway  
she had come from.   
Slowly setting down her plate, the Queen of the Earth glanced   
across the room at her husband. He pursed his lips apprehensively,   
his blue eyes meeting her gaze.  
"The time will soon come," she stated plainly before standing   
and striding out of the room.  
************  
  
Silence.  
"They're our lifeblood," commented she, the Silver Star on her   
brow burning brightly in the chamber's slight darkness. "They're what   
pulls it all together."  
The one sitting right beside her let out a long sigh. "This was   
bound to happen eventually," she put in softly, her voice reflective   
as she lowered her chin to her paws. "No bloodline lasts forever, and   
perhaps this is a sign of the future."  
Silence.  
The last member of the trio glanced through a window, his copper  
eyes glinting as they met the bright midnight moonlight. "The world   
has never revolved around us," he stated plainly, his deep baritone   
echoing slightly against marble walls. "It's time we let them go."  
He was promptly beamed upside the head with a paw.  
"Orb!" scolded the silver-marked calico cat, her scowl   
unmistakable as she glowered at her mate. "You're being stupid again!"  
The orange-and-white tom frowned confusedly. "I don't think I'm   
being stupid!" he mewed loudly in protest, nursing both his bruised   
skull and bruised ego. "I think that I made perfect sense!"  
Orion would have continued her tirade had not the third cat,   
her pink fur dotted, now, with gray, stepped between the bickering   
feline couple. "Orb's right," she told the other she-cat calmly, as   
though talking to a small child. "We, as Guardians, have always been   
secondary." The calico scowled, but her Moon Cat companion pressed on.  
"All the Mistresses will still be alive and well by time the Eve   
comes," she continued, magenta-red eyes glowing, "and they will  
certainly still have the kittens to help... Even if they are not so   
much kittens any more." She sighed slightly and shook her head.   
"Nothing lasts forever."  
In a glimmer of light, the Guardian of the Silver Star was in   
the form of a molten-silver human being, her bright green eyes   
glittering as she began to pace nervously across the room. Orb sighed;  
her transformation was a sure sign of her distress, because she only   
bothered to be a pseudo-human so she could pace like a human being   
could.  
"I know that nothing lasts forever," Orion lamented, her silver,  
human lips pursing into a frown as silvery eyebrows knitted together.  
"But the Silver Millennium bloodlines surely won't last that long,   
either, and THEN what will happen?"  
The pink cat sighed and shook her head, glancing to her brother   
for support. He gave none; his golden eyes were already filled with   
worry for his mate. Diana let out a long breath and closed her eyes   
for a moment, thinking.  
"Que sera, sera," she finally said after a long moment of   
silence. The other two glanced at her confusedly. "'What will be,   
will be.'" She wrinkled her nose at the bewildered faces that stared   
at her. "We can't control the future, but we can help shape the   
present.  
"Whatever happens to the Galactic Sailors and their heiresses   
is part of our lives, forever," she continued, her face solemn as she   
met the green-eyed gaze of Orion. "If the girls cannot embrace their   
destinies, than we will certainly live to see the end of the world."   
The fear in the forest-colored eyes of the silver spirit was   
unmistakable. "And, then again, if they are willing to be as good as   
their mothers and better, then we may see paradise." A slight smile   
touched her lips. "We just can't afford to worry about it."  
"'The world has never revolved around us,'" quoted Orion   
softly, reaching down a human hand to caress the soft, fuzzy fur of   
her orange-and-white love. "And I don't think it ever will."  
************  
  
It was a rather cool day, but she paid no heed. A ponytail of   
curls, sparkling in the winter sunlight, was pushed by the cold breeze  
as she turned a single page in her book. Blue eyes roamed over the   
words expectantly, waiting for the next bit of excitement and   
adventure that the little volume held.  
"Hey, you're Callisto, aren't you?"  
She looked up, her breath leaving little clouds of steam in the   
air as she glanced at the two people before her. They were both   
female, with thick coats covering all but the last few inches of two   
navy blue skirts. Her brow furrowed as she gently closed the dog-eared  
copy of "The Great Gatsby" and stared at the strangers.  
"Yes," she replied in a puzzled tone, obviously confused.  
The taller of the two, a longhaired blonde with unreal bronze   
eyes, smiled demurely. "I'm Vera Hartford," she introduced, holding   
out a hand. "I believe we met at the party a few nights ago."  
Immediately, the curly-haired one smiled and shook her hand.   
"Of course!" she chirped her merry way, her soprano lilt sounding very  
much like her mother's. "I remember you!" She turned quickly toward   
the second girl, this one slightly young and a good half-foot shorter.  
Black-brown tresses flowed from a high bow atop her head and down   
around her shoulders, the almost ebony hair shining in the sun. "And   
you're Ariel Yoshiko, right?"  
With a timid grin, the shorter one nodded. "Yes," she responded   
carefully, her alto voice deep and soothing. "I think we met, too."  
"Great!" Callisto scooted over on the wooden bench, letting her   
two new companions take up seats beside her. "Then you, too, must be   
daughters of the Galactic Sailors... Right?" She glanced doubtfully at  
the blonde.  
Vera nodded slightly. "That would be us," she stated blandly, a   
certain hint of unhappiness in her voice. "Heiresses of some sort."  
"It's going to be scary," commented Ariel in a wayward manner,   
her deep hunter eyes glancing across the school's front courtyard and   
toward the crystalline palace in the city's center. "We're going to be  
powerful..."  
The Elder Princess chewed indecisively on her thumbnail. "And I   
thought that Crystal Tokyo was a utopia," she put in softly, also   
staring across the city and toward her home.   
The other blonde, the oldest, tucked her hands behind her head   
and leaned back into the bench, gazing up at the sky. "That's what we   
were always told to think," she replied languidly, as though the   
subject bored her. "But nothing is ever perfect, now is it?"  
"No," agreed Callisto softly, "I don't think it is..."  
Silence washed over the trio on the bench as a brunette, thin   
and lanky, smiled softly. Her sister seemed to know more than she let   
on. The girl sighed, adjusting the books in her arms as she started   
toward the school's front doors. Sometimes, it just wasn't fair...  
And then, she collided with something.  
"Ouch!" grunted a stranger's voice as the brunette was propelled  
backwards, landing roughly on her bottom as her textbooks went flying  
in several directions. Another teen, about the same age, stature, and   
weight, was right in front of her, very much in the same position.   
This girl, however, was dressed in the familiar workout garb of the   
school's track team, and she seemed to be rubbing a bruised elbow   
instead of a bruised ego.  
Gasping, she began to gather up her things, hardly looking at   
the runner she'd just plowed over. "I'm SO sorry!" she hastily yelped,  
a blush crossing her face. "I was just so caught up in my thoughts  
that I didn't see you and--"  
"It's okay," responded the girl in the sweats, climbing to her   
feet and brushing off her outfit. "I'm not hurt." She glanced down at   
the girl before her, offering forth a hand. "I'm Elara Walker."  
"Vesta. Vesta Hartford." Accepting the hand, she pushed a few   
strands of short hair from her face and smiled gently at the stranger.  
Somehow, the other girl looked familiar, what with her long chestnut   
tresses pulled back in a loose braid and her sparkling brown eyes...   
Enlightenment dawned on her face suddenly, and she adjusted her books   
and papers to better shake Elara's hand. "You're one of the Galactic   
Sailors' daughters!" she exclaimed excitedly. "We met at the party   
two nights ago!"  
The runner furrowed her brow for a moment before smiling and   
nodding in agreement. "Yeah!" she agreed cheerily. "You're...  
Haley's...daughter, right?"  
Vesta nodded, her aqua eyes sparkling. "I'm sorry to have run   
into you," she apologized once again, letting free the soft hand of   
her newfound companion. "I was just caught up in my thoughts and..."  
"Happens to the best of us, Vesta!" interjected the other   
brunette, already taking off down the sidewalk at a slow, backward   
jog. "But I'll catch you at lunch and we'll sit together, okay?"  
"I'd like that!" she yelled happily at the retreating form.   
"Later!"  
Her voice echoed.  
And, from the front of the school, a redheaded teen sighed   
slightly.  
"If this doesn't SUCK," complained Titania Umino, crossing her   
arms over her school uniform's shirt as she glared out at the world.   
"Look at all this! Calli has friends, and the girls I met at the   
party don't even say HI, and it's not fair!" She stomped a foot   
angrily, brushing hair from her lowered cobalt eyes. "They don't   
care! None of them care!"  
But the anger gave way to despair as she rested her head against  
the cool metal of the doorjamb, still staring out at the world. Her   
eyes were unseeing, unnoticing, uncaring... She sighed once again and   
shook her head slightly. "It's not fair," she breathed to herself,   
pursing her lips. "They're special, and I'm just a girl."  
And hunter tresses blew in the wind as mysterious eyes watched   
the redhead retreat into the building.  
************  
  
They had been silent for nearly an hour.  
The two young women, both looking to be only in their twenties,   
strolled down the sidewalk of Crystal Tokyo. The sunlight filtered   
through the bare branches of January, casting strange, thin shadows   
on the pavement. It was a slightly cool day, not so cold as for one   
to see their breath, but it was definitely the time of the year for   
coats and sweaters.  
Sighing, the blue-braided one glanced at her wavy-haired friend,  
her small nose wrinkled. She hadn't even SAID anything, really...  
'And what if we weren't just put here to be Soldiers?' The   
scathing words of her rant echoed through her mind, a stream of   
consciousness that she rather wished to escape. 'What then? Do we   
really continue to waste our lives like we have been doing?'   
She frowned, brushing a loose strand of hair from her icy eyes.  
It HAD been her fault; somehow, many of the arguments were.  
They had talked about everything, up until the bickering. They   
had talked about life, about death, about love, about Sari--the name   
sent unwarranted shivers down her spine--and then about children,   
heiresses, and the future.  
'Come now, Phoebe,' the auburn-haired one had laughed, taking   
her credit card back from a store clerk. 'You're a Soldier, and   
there's nothing else.'  
And, like a rocket, she had gone off.  
The winter wind rustled the barren branches of so many Ginkous,   
and she shivered involuntarily. It was her fault; it always was, to   
some extent.  
"Hey, Alice, I'm really sorry about--"  
Suddenly, Phoebe felt something tug on her purse strap, and the  
next few seconds were a literal whirlwind.   
Throwing her weight to one side, she used her dancer's balance   
to turn herself in a circle and dragged whatever was hanging on her   
purse along with her. Time seemed to slow as she raised a single leg   
and kicked the attacker--she could see now that she was the victim of   
an attempted purse snatching--hard in the shoulder.  
Her attacker let out a pained, high-pitched yelp before   
slamming, back first, into the red brick front of a small coffee shop.  
A few passers-by glanced warily and the scene but dared not get near   
any of the three participants. The obvious rage of the blue-haired one  
was enough.  
Heart racing, breathing raged, she lowered ice blue eyes,   
glaring angrily at a strange sort of downward angle at the assailant.   
Bright, crystal blue eyes, slightly slanted and fearless, glowered   
right back at her.  
And then Phoebe gasped.  
The purse-snatcher was nothing but a ragged girl!  
Tall and lanky, the would-be criminal--no older than twelve or   
thirteen--stood with her back to the bricks, still clutching onto the  
black purse strap. Her chest rose and fell in ragged gasps, her   
breathing ruffling dirty orange-red curls that hung in her face. She   
was extremely thin, and the sweatshirt and jeans she wore seemed to   
be several sizes too big. Still, the resolve in her eyes was amazing,   
and it almost led the adult to let her go.  
Almost being the key word, of course.  
"What do you think you're doing?!" roared the blue-braided one,   
her voice icy and low as she stared down at the panting girl. "Do you  
have ANY idea how illegal stealing is?"  
Alice's face blanched, and her chestnut eyes went wide as she   
listened to the venom course through her friend's voice. "Pheebs..."  
The angered blue-haired one didn't turn from her target, but   
her attention momentarily flickered toward her companion. "No!" she   
shot, an edge of annoyance in her tone. "I want to know what this...  
this CHILD...is thinking!"  
There was an uneasy pause as the girl brushed a strand of gold-  
red hair from her eyes, still clasping desperately to the purse. Her   
eyes were glimmering with a certain deft fearlessness.  
"I'm thinkin'," she responded in a low voice after a long bout   
of silence, "that you've gots cash that I don't."  
For what seemed to be an eternity, Phoebe just stared, the fury  
in her entire expression melting away to sweet compassion. Her lips   
were slightly parted in some semblance of shock as she gazed down at   
the girl. "What did you say?" she questioned, confused.  
The strange child grunted, tossing her head a bit, but her line   
of sight never wavered. "You heard me."  
All compassion drained from the actress' face as she once again  
lowered her eyes. "Don't you DARE talk back to me like that!" she   
shrieked, unbridled rage searing through her tone as she glared icily   
into the child's complacent eyes. "Didn't your parents ever think to   
teach you better?"  
A cool gust of wind picked up, and Alice shivered. The staring   
contest between victim and criminal grew deathly silent, the   
uneasiness in the entire situation almost palpable.   
Then, the girl shrugged noncommittally. "Hard to learn if you   
ain't got parents, ne?"  
Phoebe gasped, staring straight at the girl for a long moment.   
Some sort of power, the likes of which she'd never felt before,   
swirled around her body, and she could feel the hem of her skirt   
rustle in the unseen motion. Suddenly, there was a glimmer of bright   
blue on the child's forehead, the likes of which the dancer had never   
seen before. In but a second's time, it formed a single symbol, and   
then died away.  
The energy around her stood still, but the woman recognized the   
symbol.  
It was the sigil of Mercury.  
Suddenly very cold, the girl let a shiver rack through her body.  
Something--and she wasn't sure what it was or where it had come from--  
had brought her warmth, and it was gone. The stranger's intense stare,  
now gentle and full of adoration, caused her heart to race. It was   
like a mother's gaze, full of a strangely unconditional love...  
Like a...a mother?  
The auburn-haired one brushed a wavy tress from her face,   
gaping at the duo before her.  
Letting free her purse, Phoebe took a small step closer to the   
girl, her manner completely morphed. "What's your name?" she asked   
softly, her voice lacking the harsh edge that, moments ago, had   
dominated.  
The girl didn't move an inch. "I don't got one," she responded,   
her tone uncertain.  
"None at all?"   
Considering this, the odd child wrinkled her small nose and   
pursed her chapped lips. "Well, the nannies at the orphanage used to   
call me 'Trinity...'" There was a pause, as though pondering the name.  
"Before I ran away, I mean," she added hurriedly, as though the woman   
before her was part apparition and would fade away before her very   
eyes.  
"So, kiddo," Phoebe addressed her, manner of speaking unusually   
casual, "do you believe in destiny?"  
The girl didn't wait to answer. "I didn't until now."  
Unable to remain silent any longer, the observer frowned. "WHAT   
IS GOING ON?" she screamed, fists clenched at either side of her body.  
"I'M LOST!"  
Taking another miniscule step forward, the blue-haired one   
gently took her purse from the white-knuckled grasp of the girl. Her   
smile was soft, loving, and filled with an emotion that she would   
have, ten minutes ago, said she had no capacity to feel.  
Maternal compassion.  
"Well, Trinity," she spoke, her voice echoing through the area,  
"my name is Phoebe Urawa, and I think that I'm meant to be your   
mother."  
There was silence as the girl stared and then, slowly, allowed   
her face to break into a smile. Phoebe reached forward and shook the   
child's hand, gripping it with all the consideration and kindness of   
a parent.  
And Alice exploded.  
"WHAT?!?!?"   
************  
  
The slow, melancholy violin melody ripped through the otherwise  
silent house as the teenaged girl stood alone, the small 'music room'   
completely vacant of any other sign of life.   
Her face was devoid of all emotion as she carefully drew the   
bow across the strings, the soft, sad notes pouring out from the   
instrument and circling about her. She could almost feel the   
invisible power of her music swirling around the room, ruffling her   
school uniform.   
Why? She had always asked herself that, but she'd never really   
found even half an answer. Why WAS Vera destined to be something more   
wonderful, more substantial, than she would ever be? Her half-lidded   
aqua eyes ached painfully, and she drew them shut. Vera would always   
be more important, more powerful, and more... Her mind couldn't reach   
the right word. More...alive, perhaps? She let out a sigh and moved   
her bow quickly, covering sixteenth notes with much grace and skill.  
Her mother had once, long ago, told the two girls of Sailors   
Uranus and Neptune, their grandmothers. And she'd smiled and said   
that eldest daughters always became Sailor Scouts. And that had   
excited the smaller, brown-haired Hartford child, even if she wasn't  
the oldest. But it had scared her blonde older sister.  
And now, the proverbial tables had turned. Vera was ready to   
accept her destiny... It was in her eyes, in her movements, and even   
in the way she picked the "Sailor Stars Song" out on the piano every   
few days. She was changing, changing in that she knew the truth, and   
she was ready to take in all that being a soldier encompassed.  
And, as for her...  
Suddenly, the piano began to play, and Vesta nearly leapt out   
of her skin.  
Long, slender fingers flew across the keys, picking out an ever-  
familiar song.   
Frowning, the younger girl set down her violin. "What in the   
world do you want?" she questioned of her sister, brushing a strand   
of chestnut hair from her face.  
Ever solemn, her elder sister continued her song, placing down   
chords, eighth notes, and harmonies without music, as though she'd   
known the tune her entire life.  
"Don't think I'm not frightened," Vera stated plainly, her   
copper eyes staring down at the white keys as she spoke. "I'm   
terrified, little sister, and I don't want to have to be a Uranus   
without her Neptune."  
The brunette blinked confused teal eyes. "Oh?"  
"'Don't give up, for tomorrow a Sailor yell,'" sung her sister   
along in a mysterious manner, her deep voice echoing. "'For sure, I   
will catch it, the Sailor Star; this vow reaches to the end of the   
galaxy.'" She plucked down note after note, pulling them out of the   
blue, hitting unmarked flats and sharps in just the right places. "We   
both share the same destiny, my dear sister." She glanced at the   
shorter girl, a frown crossing her face. "We are both fighting for   
the same cause."  
Settling down on the very edge of the piano bench, the younger   
girl improvised some harmonies over her sister's song. "Smile then,   
Vera," Vesta responded softly, her eyes studying the older teen's face  
for any and all signs of emotion. "Smiling is a part of life."  
The blonde let the slight curve of a grin touch her pink lips,   
but its life was as a flower's and soon faded away. "Promise me,   
Vesta, that we'll always fight together."  
Fight together? The brunette pressed her lips together in   
thought, her free hand finger-combing her long tresses idly as she   
added chords above the melody on the piano. Was she really one of the   
destined ones? Was she made to be a Solider, as well?  
A Uranus always had her Neptune.  
"'This vow reaches to the end of the galaxy,'" nodded Vesta   
sternly, a smile crossing her face. "We, as sisters, will ALWAYS   
fight together."  
Her sister smiled as well, her face lighting up for the first   
time in a long time. "That, dear sister, is good to know."  
And the last chord of a song about destiny echoed heavily   
through the room, ringing freely.  
************  
  
"And he's so infuriating!" she fumed, gulping down mouthful   
after mouthful of hot mocha as her breath swirled through the air of   
the winter evening. It was a chill early evening, not as chill as it   
could have been but not as warm as either of the women would have   
liked it.  
They stood together, side-by-side, in front of the small coffee   
shop, leaning slightly against the large picture window of the café   
as they waited for a city bus. They were startlingly, amazingly   
different in looks; one was thin and short, with very pale skin but   
strikingly dark black hair and vibrant purple eyes, whereas her   
companion was taller, with a more muscular frame and chin-length   
brown/gold tresses. But she was livid with someone or something, and   
the scowl on her young face proved it.  
And yet, they were sisters, bound by destiny in a way that no   
blood relatives could ever explain.  
Chuckling, the severe-looking one sipped her chai tea, both   
listening and not listening to her younger companion. "If I didn't   
know better," she responded to the angry comment, smiling over her   
drink toward the nearly deserted Tokyo street, "I would think you and   
Eric were Mom and Mom. Period."  
"And what's THAT supposed to mean?" grumbled Haley Hartford,   
huffily brushing her bangs from her aqua eyes. "It's not like I MEANT   
to pick a man with a personality SO much like Momma Michi's!" She   
scowled at her own phrase. "Ugh, the girls are both in their teens   
and I'm STILL using the saying 'Momma Michi.'" Sighing, she took a   
long swig out of her paper cup, shaking her head as she did. "It's   
disgusting, sometimes, but I really do miss them both. A lot."  
With a gentler, more sedated smile, Hannah nodded her head a   
bit. "So do I," she admitted softly, watching her steamy breath curl   
over itself in midair. "It's lonely, sometimes, my being on my own   
without their help at all..."  
Her sister drew in a sharp breath. "I'd forgotten!" she   
exclaimed, gaping at the older woman. "You're the last Mistress! It   
must be dreadfully lonely!"  
There was a long pause as the last Planet Mistress, the   
Mistress of Saturn, took a long sip of her tea. Her violet eyes   
glanced at a streetlight as it slowly flickered on, bathing the area   
in its warm glow. Her pale lips pursed gently into a line, but she   
finally managed to look at her companion.  
"There's an old order," she stated plainly, a certain wistful   
gleam in her mysterious gaze, "and there's a new order. There's good.   
There's bad. And then, there's me." She pursed her lips again,   
glancing quickly away, focusing on the concrete below her shoes. "The  
Mistress Saturn, armed solely with an heiress and a destiny, trapped   
on a planet that never loved her." She sipped her drink demurely,   
suddenly looking more like a small child than ever before, short and   
harmless and lost.  
"But..." She sighed and a slight grin crossed her face. It was   
sad, but yet hopeful as she turned her face to the sky. "But that's   
okay. I'm alright." Her gaze darted to Haley's face, eyes locking. "I   
might live to see my older daughter happy. I might live to see my   
younger daughter married. And that's what I have to care about, now."   
The teal eyes that stared into hers were confused, brown eyebrows   
were knitted, and she chuckled. "Life is like a mystery novel," she   
reminded her younger sibling. "You never know the outcome until you   
turn the last page. It's a story."  
Her sister smiled a bit, shaking her head. "I think that it's   
more like a series of books," she disagreed thoughtfully, her lips   
parting as she took one last swig of her drink. "I think it goes on   
and on, like you said, but I think it's never all the way over."  
Hannah raised an eyebrow. "But if we're not on the last page,"   
she questioned, "where are we?"  
With a wink, the Galactic Sailor of the Comets lobbed her cap   
into a nearby garbage pail. "I think," she responded, grinning, "that  
we're in the middle of the epilogue."  
************  
  
It was dark out. Quite dark, actually, that strangely eerie   
sort of dark that was so vehemently black that it made you want to   
shiver and be held in the warm arms of someone precious. It was the   
sort of black darkness that made you want to curl up and die. It was   
terrifying...  
She, on the other hand, was perfectly at one with the darkness   
as she sat at the bedroom's window seat, grading essays by pale   
lamplight. She had learned long ago that her mate, the lovely saint,   
couldn't sleep without the aid of near-complete darkness, and she had  
learned to indulge in the quiet peace that that darkness brought. It   
was amazingly relaxing, the blackness was, with a certain refreshing   
silence to it all...  
Or maybe that was just her nature. She had often pondered on   
this, her sister and her love laughing as she wondered aloud the full  
extent of her nature, as an heiress, and she had sighed her little   
sigh and had her hair ruffled for it. It was, after all, her nature   
to love the black...  
"Delaney," groaned a deep--yet feminine--voice from the bed,   
and purple eyes glanced away from their duty to the long, stretched-  
out woman in the bed. Her burgundy hair flowed across the pillows and   
bedsheets like a sea of sorts... A slight smile kissed pale lips as   
the woman in the bed rolled over onto her side and opened a single   
emerald eye. "Will you come to bed already? It's past midnight."  
The raven-haired one widened her smile and leaned back against   
the window, her eyes flitting back to the paper before her. "Soon,   
Sharon," she responded casually, her red pencil flying across the   
essay, marking errors and correcting mistakes. "Go to sleep."  
Her mate growled. "But, 'Laney..."  
"I know, I know," responded the older of the two women,   
chuckling slightly at her friend's antics, "'all work and no sex   
makes Delaney a dull girl.' Right?"  
Curling up in the thick purple quilt, the other woman closed   
her eyes and let out a sigh, smiling a bit. "Or a single girl,"   
quipped Sharon lightly, snuggling into the sheets. "After all, I   
think Rhea is...still...[yawn]...single..."  
Delaney shook her head and switched off the small lamp at her   
side, sitting silently in the darkness of the bedroom. The moon was   
just now peeking out from behind the thick winter clouds, sparkling   
slightly into the bedroom. Violet eyes rose to meet that moon, to   
exchange unsaid words with that orb's mistress, to take in the   
awesome power...  
And yet the only thing that came to her mind was destiny.  
What was destiny? She glanced at the still, now-sleeping form   
in the bed, trying desperately to understand. If Destiny was a novel,   
then the Sailor Soldiers would be the protagonists, utopia the   
setting, evil the antagonist, and Sharon and Rhea the plot devices.   
If Destiny was a highway, the Senshi would be the cars, evil the road   
blocks, utopia the exit they were looking for, and Sharon and Rhea the  
lampposts. If Destiny was a computer game... If Destiny was a   
flower... If Destiny was a CD...  
And the list went on and on. Sighing, she rose, crossing to the   
bed and sitting on its very edge. A befuddled hand from her mate   
reached forward, groping for and finding the warm lap of the   
Saturnian heiress. Delaney smiled sweetly at the small hand with its   
long fingers and enveloped it in hers, giving it a gentle squeeze.  
Whatever destiny was, it was leaving out the people she cared   
about most. Her lover and her sister.  
It hadn't been so obvious when she was younger. In fact, she   
had never really cared about becoming a soldier when she was younger.   
After all, back then, the Galactic Sailors had still been quite young   
and definitely not ready to have children. And even after her cousin,   
Vera, had been born... And even after the Princesses of the Solar   
System had been born... It hadn't mattered. She'd had schools, and   
grades, and parties with her sister and best friends to worry about,   
and that certainly didn't leave time for destiny!  
Then, she'd graduated high school, and suddenly the world had   
been cold and dark as night for her. She was expected to move away   
from home, to go to college alone, to leave her parents, and sister,  
and 'Great-Aunt' Susan and Susan's three children...  
But then, for some reason, Sharon had come to the rescue. She   
had been a ridiculous, spunky, hotheaded sixteen-year-old with an   
impossibly wild talent for cheering anyone up. Within a week, she had   
fixed the world's woes, or so thought Delaney. And then they'd gone   
out one night, just like friends did, and then they were kissing, and   
then...  
The hand in hers stirred, and she snorted in amusement. The   
girl had read her mind from that moment on.  
But had it been destiny? Had fate really ordained that they   
fall in love? Or had it been just the whim of the gods that they   
meet...  
Or did it matter? She let free the hand and sunk into the bed,   
lying atop the covers as she watched her girlfriend sleep. It was a   
blissful silence, the taller woman's chest rising and falling in an   
even beat, the soft breathing as she frolicked through her dreams...   
Sharon Chiba, a tall, silly woman with a love of life.  
Rhea Hartford, a short, frail young woman with a sugar-sweet   
heart.  
Brushing a strand of hair of her partner's cheek, Delaney   
smiled. It didn't matter. Destiny didn't matter. Even if it was a   
novel, or a CD, or a game, or a road, or a million other things, and  
even if it hadn't had a thing to do with her being paired up with the  
single most adorable person on Earth... Nothing mattered.  
She loved Sharon.  
She loved Rhea.  
And THAT was the important part.  
************  
  
She sighed miserably, wiping her teary eyes as she stared at   
the computer screen. The whiteness of her word-processing program and   
the blackness of the blinking cursor almost mind-numbing. Dumbly, she   
punched the little square button on her monitor, burying her face in   
her hands with a soft sob of despair.  
'Why me?'  
The light from the computer shut off, the room grew dark. A dull  
silver glow, the moon glimmering through green-white curtains, gave   
an eerie quality to the scene as the woman tried to retain her sanity.  
'Why, why me? Why must I be the one with the greatest destiny?'   
In her mind's eye, she could remember being a tumultuous   
teenaged girl, her silken tresses sheared short and her eye makeup   
heavy as she stood across the kitchen from her mother. The woman,   
always cool and collected, never responded to the scathing, screaming,  
irrational questions of her daughter. She could even remember her   
brother, standing in the doorway as she roared at the calm female   
influence, shaking his head.   
Until there was one time, one time where she had let it all   
loose. She'd been seventeen in both body and consciousness but   
fourteen in years, and her mother had forbade her to go to the senior   
prom. She'd had all the emotions of a hotheaded teen, even if she WAS   
younger than the rest of her class, and the pretence that she was   
truly a high-school senior had especially bewitched a strange,   
charming young basketball player. She'd fought and fought over it,   
despite the urgings of her father and brother to let it go, and in   
the end... There were more important things, the adult had rationally   
explained, than little dances. She was still child, and still had the  
life experiences of a fourteen-year-old, and was still behind in the   
terms of--  
'But mother!' she had pleaded at the top of her lungs, colorful  
eyes filling with tears. 'I have lived through things that most humans  
would never dream to live through!'  
'Maybe so,' her mother had said, 'but that still will never   
compare to what I've gone through.'  
And, in the end, where had all that fighting gotten her?  
Well, she was twenty-nine years old now... Twenty-nine going on   
eternal. She was just another one of the many inhabitants of Crystal  
Tokyo, that supposed utopia of perfection... She was a graphic   
designer, not a bad job, and she was trying to get a minor degree in   
history, just for the sake of it...  
And now, instead of writing her term paper, she was sitting in   
the dark, feeling sorry for herself.  
Her fists clenched. Her tears came flowing back to the surface.  
Her lips pressed shut.   
Her mother would have been ashamed.  
She had nothing that her mother, the perfect person, would have   
had. She didn't have a firm grasp on that unobtainable ideal that some  
would call 'love...' She didn't have hope or even a bit of optimism   
for the future... After all, what was the future? It was another   
reality, parallel to theirs, with more senshi and more battles and   
more evil and more trouble for more Moon Princesses. Hey, maybe if   
they all got far enough into the future, it would be the past again   
and they could fight Queen Metallia!  
Her lips curved into a slight smile, before breaking open in   
laughter. High-pitched, shrieking laughter. It was manic laughter, the  
kind of laughter that people going completely insane laughed.  
She paused, freezing. Her head was tilted upward, and her eyes   
had been closed, and she gave the impression of one utterly and   
thoroughly lost to her own insanity.  
Insanity...  
"You're not insane," chided a voice as more light poured into   
the room, and she didn't need to turn around to know that there was a   
young man standing at the window behind her. No, she didn't need to   
turn to see the auburn-black tresses that fell into purple eyes or   
the sloppiness of his favorite blue dress pants or the untied tie   
that dangled around his neck.  
But she did turn anyway.  
He was looking out the window, those enchanting violet eyes   
that had so captured her years before staring out at the highest   
spire of Crystal Palace. He was silent, almost stoic, neither smiling  
nor frowning.  
"Insanity doesn't suit you, Aeris," he continued, as though   
there had been no pause. "You're just lonely, and you need some   
love."  
And that was all she needed.  
"Damn you, Joshua Yuuichirou," she swore in a low tone, her   
fingers gripping the back of her chair as she glowered across the   
bedroom at him. It was a tiny room, maybe four meters in diameter,   
really only big enough for a bed, dresser, and computer desk, and she   
had no problem meeting his gaze. Eyes locked, hers as dark and   
unforgiving as his were kind and loving.   
She felt her determination waver, but she fought the doubtful   
feeling away.  
"You can't just leave well enough alone," she continued icily,   
the deep hatred to her voice something that not even Evil Queen   
Ginnie had been given the opportunity to hear twenty-five years   
previous. It was said that the voice of a hate-filled Pluto could   
drive even the most placid human being to insanity.   
She was aiming for just that.  
The young man leaned back against the white-painted wall, as   
though he was challenging her. Perhaps he was.   
Her fist tightened further. "I am Pluto," she stated plainly,   
her glare turning more livid with every beat of her breathing. "I am   
the Guardian of Time and the protector of the Solar System, Sailor   
Pluto." A lump rose in her throat as he continued to stare at her,   
his smirk melting into a sweet, caring smile. "I have no place in my   
soldier's heart for love."  
Wordless, Josh stepped away from his place against the wall to   
stride toward her. She didn't move so much as an inch, her chest   
rising and falling in ragged, weak gasps. But he could see it in her   
eyes, those normally purple-blue-green-yellow-gold-bronze-pink-red-  
white-gray-silver-brown eyes that were now a narrow shade of black.   
Even if she still looked like something out of a fantasy novel, even   
if her expression fit the saying 'Hell hath no fury like a woman   
scorned,' he could see it.  
She had already given in.  
As soon as he reached the space directly before her, he stooped   
down a bit so that their eyes were only a few centimeters apart.   
Purple met black, and black flittered for a moment back to their   
original, all-colors-and-none tone as the woman gave in to that   
enchanting gaze.  
Her breath tickled his lips.  
"Aeris Lynne," he whispered, his voice like a gust of wind on a   
spring day as he stood before her, "I am not asking you to love me."  
Her gaze never wavered, but he could practically feel her mind   
as it searched for an explanation to his seemingly random comment. He  
smiled.  
"I just want you to let me love YOU."  
There was a pause, and then her lips were on his, tasting,   
caressing, feeling, pushing, pulling, teasing, wanting, needing,   
being... She tossed her arms around his neck, pressing her smaller   
form against him, her body throwing him onto the bed with a ferocity   
that he'd scarce even dared to dream about.  
As she pulled away his tie, gentle lips sucking his jawbone and   
then neck with a certain eager passion that he'd never found in the   
young woman. Through ragged, lustful breaths, he managed to find her   
chin in his hands and bring her face to his.   
"Aeris," he croaked out, overcome with a need he didn't know he  
had, "I thought that you couldn't feel love."  
She smiled slightly, lowering her head just long enough to give   
him a small taste of her sweet lips. "Who said anything about love?"   
she questioned, pulling away just a centimeter as she lay atop him,   
body pressed against his.   
Time seemed to stop for a brief moment, a single sentence in an   
ageless voice drifting across conciseness for a moment.  
'There is a certain tradition amongst Plutos...'  
And then Joshua rolled them both over, entangling his hands in   
hunter tresses, drinking passion from ruby red lips...never willing   
to let go.  
************  
  
It was dark as she sat alone on the balcony, her elbows resting   
on its white marble railing as she stared out at the stars. And at   
space.  
She never used to complain about her life. After all, her   
personal duty as a soldier was finally over, as she had sometimes so   
wished it to be, and she'd reveled in that fact. It was sweet freedom,  
and every day as Queen of the Solar System was a new kiss, a new hug,   
a new loving caress in the marriage of herself and her destiny. But   
now, with tomorrow so close at her heels, nipping so often at her   
bare feet, she felt that maybe it would have been a better divorce   
than marriage...  
Her daughters were progressing nicely in their training. They   
were both decent princesses, Selene more so than her more athletic   
twin, and--differences aside--they would soon both show their good as   
soldiers as well as princesses. They could easily serve as the twin   
soldiers of the Moon; there had never before been two Sailor soldiers   
for the same planet, but there was always a first time for everything.  
Precedent had to be set, in many cases, by the Galactic Sailors.  
Ah, the Galactic Sailors. She brushed a strand of rosy hair   
from her face, smiling at the memories she'd shared with her best   
friends. They had all been her very best friends, some more than   
others, and every day they'd shared brought another twang of sadness   
to her soul. She was so busy with her life that she didn't ever keep   
in touch...  
But life didn't stop just because she wanted it to, did it? She   
pursed her full lips, considering this. They were the first Galactic   
Sailors, they were a race all their own, but they couldn't control   
the fate of the world just after having a bad day. Fate, destiny,   
love... They had had a choice, way back then, twenty-eight years   
previous, and they had chosen fate and destiny. The love part had just  
come as part of the deal.  
Life didn't stop. It never had. They would embrace it, and   
embrace the coming Eve of Mistresses, and they would live their lives   
as best they could.  
And that, thought the Queen of the Solar System, Serenity IV,   
was the most important thing in the entire universe.  
Just living.  
************  
  
She stared at herself in the mirror, crystalline eyes staring at  
her reflection in doubt. Her hair, normally ratty and unkempt, was   
pulled into two straight, chest-length braids, one on each side of   
her head. A few, curly strands had escaped and sprung out from her   
temples, giving her an orange-gold halo of sorts.   
A navy-blue skirt, pleated, hung limply from her thin hips,   
flowing all the way down to her calves where it should have stopped   
at her kneecaps, if not sooner. Her blouse, however, was a few inches  
too short, being as it showed both her flat stomach and the three   
places where the skirt's waist had been pinned to keep it from   
falling straight off.  
"That's it," she stated blandly, raising her arms to remove the   
blouse. "I ain't goin'."  
In one deft movement, Phoebe Urawa had pounced on the girl,   
tugging the shirt back to its proper place and firmly holding it   
there. "Trinity, I am NOT letting you stay home from school," she   
reprimanded, setting her ice-colored eyes into a glare while she   
stared at the child using the full-length mirror. "You haven't been   
educated properly yet, and it's time to start."  
Tossing a braid indignantly, the child snort. "I've gotten   
teached just fine!" she retorted stubbornly, then frowned. "Oh."  
Alice chuckled, taking up a seat on the edge of her bed. They   
were all in her and Todd's bedroom, as they had been since six that   
morning. As enthused as the golden-red-haired stranger had been about   
getting to live in a nice house with a friendly group of people...   
Even if part of the deal with her newfound guardian WAS to haul off   
and travel all the way to Paris in less than a month... Whatever went   
on, that was fine. No more that what was set, and the plan would go   
all the way to being fun.  
But SCHOOL?  
"If it's about the uniform, I'm REALLY sorry," Alice sighed,   
brown eyes staring at the bright silver safety pins and the few,   
makeshift hemming stitches at the bottom of the skirt. "Elara's a   
little taller than you, and I guess she was taller back in eighth   
grade, too."  
Phoebe wrinkled her nose a little and bent over, studying the   
shapely, if thin, calf muscles of her 'daughter.' "You've got jazz   
dancing legs," she commented, pulling the skirt up to the girl's   
thighs and studying in turn her knees and the overall shape of her   
legs. "Short, muscular, with defined knees..." She nodded to herself,   
straightening up. The look in her eyes was that of a dog trainer   
examining the latest champion. "Definitely."  
Trinity scowled. "Dancing?" she questioned doubtfully. "But I   
thought that we was talkin' 'bout the uniform..."  
The two adults laughed, and the blue-braided one gingerly   
placed a hand on the girl's shoulder. "Don't worry," she chuckled,   
her high voice sweet and somewhat soothing. "School will be fine, and   
Alice will have plenty of time to hem ALL of Elara's old school   
skirts in the coming weeks."  
Raising a gold-red eyebrow, the child cocked her head to one   
side. "But ya said..."  
"Trinity!" trilled a soprano lilt from the next room, and   
within a few seconds the brown-haired Elara had poked her head in the   
doorway. The smile in her bright chestnut eyes almost radioactive.   
"We're going to be late to school if you don't hurry up!" She was   
gone in a flash of white school blouse, calling for her brother.  
All three females filed out of the room, Phoebe lightly pushing   
her heiress the whole way. When they got to the front foyer, Elara   
and her brother Nicky were both already there, pulling on their shoes  
in a frantic race to get out the door. Sighing, the newly enrolled   
eighth-grader slipped on her black loafers, a casual nervousness   
about her.  
"You think you can make it?" asked the wavy-haired brunette   
mildly, raising her eyebrows.  
For what was possibly the first time that morning, Trinity   
smiled, her crystal-blue eyes sparkling. "I think so," she nodded.  
And then, in what almost seemed to be organized chaos, the   
three children were out the door--Elara giggling, little Nick whining,  
and Trinity, ever emotionless, trying to take in her new world   
without feeling.  
It failed, and the hints of the smile remained pasted on her   
face even after the door slammed shut.  
Alice collapsed onto the bottommost step of the Walker's front   
stairwell, sighing in exasperation. "Now you know what it's like to   
have kids," she complained sourly. "Never a dull moment."  
"Maybe so," responded the braided-one, seating herself on the   
edge of a small oak table nearby, "but I have to admit that I'm still   
jealous."  
Her friend blinked. "Jealous? Why?"  
Phoebe shrugged. "I may have Trinity, now," she responded, her   
lips pursing as she tried to think of the right words, "but it   
doesn't really mean she's my daughter." With a shake of her head, she  
let one tear roll down her face. "The only way for me to really   
fulfill all this is to leave Paris. Right?"  
Gulping, the auburn-tressed one gazed up at her best friend.   
"Oh Pheebs! I didn't even think of that!"  
"In the long run, it'll be a good thing," continued the   
actress, as though she'd not heard the sympathy from her companion.   
"Sari and I--as beautiful and witty as she is and as much as I love   
her--aren't meant to be together." A pink tongue wet pink lips.   
"After all, every relationship I've been in since day one has crashed   
and burned... Except for our friendship, of course." She glanced over   
at Alice, bright ice-blue eyes glittering, full of unshed tears.   
"That's all that matters. The friendship of the Gals."  
"Oh, Phoebe..."  
Smiling slightly, the braid-haired one looked up at the ceiling,  
staring straight at the rotating fan above her. "The Gals. The   
heiresses. And the love that we're supposed to share." She turned   
back to her companion, all the tears gone. "And for that, I'd leave   
anyone."  
Without words, Alice stood. Her face was a mask of combined   
strength and sorrow, a picture of the empathy she felt with her   
friend. The empathy that they were supposed to share.  
"Alice, I'd do anything for you guys. And I mean it."  
And, silently, the auburn-waved one pulled her best friend   
into a tight, tight hug.  
************  
  
She stood in front of the full-length mirror, her thin,   
adolescent form almost disgusting to her as she stared at her   
reflection. She was so boring, so plain and absolutely shapeless...   
Even the same silver gown, that same sign of being a Silver Star   
princess that her older sister filled out so incredibly well, hung   
limply from her tiny shoulders and flowed loosely to the floor.   
Whereas her wonderful older sister, Elder Princess Callisto, looked   
voluptuous and debonair in her gown, she looked like a worthless   
schmuck.  
Then again, if the shoe fit--  
"Don't beat yourself up like that," chided a small voice, and   
she didn't have to look down to know that a fat old calico cat was   
staring up at her. Well, she saw the cat, inwardly, as fat and old,   
even if the Silver Star Guardian was just about the single most able   
creature on the planet. In her opinion, Orion was cynical, cranky,   
and full of a certain kind of spite that really unhinged her. Of   
course, there was always the chance that her way of looking at things   
was wrong, and then...  
"I can too beat myself up," groused the redheaded girl, vainly   
trying to pile her straight scarlet tresses atop her head and then   
grimacing wickedly as they cascaded back down to their proper level,   
resting at her chin. Her cobalt eyes glowered at her own reflection.   
"After all," she continued after a brief pause, "I'm not as good and   
kind as Calli is."  
The cat rolled her green eyes, leaping onto the mirror-side   
vanity and shooting one of her patented 'looks' at the young teen.   
"You're nothing like Callisto," she argued, irritated, "so don't try   
to compare. You've got your father's charming looks and..." She   
shrugged. "Well, I don't know which side the inferiority complex   
runs in, your mother's, most likely, but you've got that too."   
Sighing, the feline shook her head. "And, as for the temper, it's a   
Mina thing that you inherited, you'll learn to cope wi--"  
"SHUT UP!" roared the girl suddenly, turning on the cat with   
all the ferocity of a large lion. "Just shut up and leave!" She   
collapsed to her knees, near tears, no longer bearing to look in the   
mirror. "Don't you understand at all, Orion? Don't you even   
understand the tiniest thing?"  
There was a long silence, sorrowful and heavy, as the girl   
sobbed into her long silken skirts. The cat, her guardian and the   
guardian of her family, stared gaping for a long moment, unsure what  
to say. Certainly, this wasn't the iron-willed Titania before her!   
Surely, there had to have been some mistake...  
Then, she smiled. " 'If a man does not keep pace with his   
companions,'" the animal quoted knowingly, her voice resonating   
through the chamber, "'perhaps it is because her hears a different   
drummer.'" The girl glanced up, confused and amazed, tears dripping   
down her pale cheeks and onto her glittering gown. "'Let him step to   
the music which he hears, however measured or far away."   
Titania Umino blinked. "What?" she gaped, staring at her small,   
furry companion.   
"Henry David Thoreau," responded Guardian Spirit of the Silver   
Star, Orion. She smiled sweetly, hopping from her perch to stand   
right before her young charge. "You have to understand, Tita," she   
continued, almost smirking, "that everyone's different. We all have   
different hopes, different destinies, different fears. Some cross   
over, but some don't.  
"There's a different beat for everyone." She sighed, her smile   
growing wistful, sad, as she stared at the thirteen-year-old girl   
before her. Beautiful, tear-filled blue eyes stared back, much like   
the sad eyes of one certain Silver Star Queen millennia upon   
millennia ago. The same kind of blue eyes, the same shape and quality,  
had cried for the unborn prince and princess of a kingdom that was   
ending...  
She smiled. Titania would grow to someday look much like her   
grandmother, Molly. "You," she addressed the girl, turning her face   
to the great blue skies that could be seen through the bedroom   
window, "just need to find your beat. There's a lot of them to chose   
from, and you've just got to embrace that choice."  
Brushing a strand of hair from her face, the girl frowned   
slightly, completely baffled by the change in manner of her feline   
friend. "But, Orion," she breathed, staring, "how in the world will I   
know which beat is mine?" The cat looked back at her, and she could   
feel the fear well up in her chest. "How will I know that I've found   
my drummer's beat when everything else is so confusing and muddled?"  
Smiling, the calico cocked her head to one side, as though   
challenging her young friend. In a way, she was. "I don't know," she   
admitted with a shrug. "It's all uncertain for you children, all   
eleven of you, but I somehow think you'll make it as soldiers."  
A blink of stunning cobalt eyes. Orion smiled. Just like   
Molly... "But, Orion..." gulped Titania, a good degree of excited   
nervousness to her already wavering tone. "I'm not... I'm just...   
Calli is..."  
Orion raised her face to the sunlight again, breathing in the   
crisp sweetness of the winter--and the coming spring. Spring would   
bring rebirth, renewal, and...  
"You, Titania Kyoko," she stated plainly, her silver sigil   
sparkling on her brow, "will be a very fine Sailor Polaris."  
And, for what was one of the first times in months, Titania   
smiled.  
************  
  
The darkness of night enveloped her slender form as she laid   
alone in the large poster bed, a single hand resting on her belly.   
Above her, through the skylight, she could see the dull sparkle of a   
silver moon hidden behind gray clouds. Clouds... Weren't clouds the   
symbol of Heaven?  
Ah, but she could never go to Heaven. Her bloodlines were   
tainted with the sin of the mortal flesh... She was more human than   
angel, actually, something that had been true also for her mother and,  
sadly, her mother before that. It was the way of the Angels of the   
Moon.  
Her gray eyes closed as she idly stroked the silken fabric of   
her nightgown. It couldn't be too late at night, perhaps midnight,   
perhaps earlier, and she could hear the clatter of indulgent priests   
and priestesses tromping down the halls of her palace, back from   
their midnight trysts or drinking parties. Her nose wrinkled   
involuntarily; was no one serious about their learning?  
No. No one ever had been. She sighed sadly, feeling the small   
stirring of the life inside her. She wasn't due for another good four-  
and-a-half months, but she could FEEL the child within her... Her   
daughter...  
Arael... The angel of birds...  
That would be her name...  
She took a deep breath, the scents of cherry blossoms and   
vanilla filling her nostrils. Her eyelids were slowly getting heavy,   
and she knew that there would be black bags beneath her gray eyes,   
come the morn. But she didn't care. Her mind was racing, racing with   
so many thoughts and cares and worries that she couldn't control and   
would never be able to control, like...  
Like the future of the universe...  
Like her daughter's happiness...  
Like how the coming soldiers and their mothers would fare...  
Like what was going to happen...  
Like when it was going to happen...  
Like how it was going to happen...  
Her fists clenched, her fingers icily cold against her palms.   
She could feel her shoulders start to shake, her chest rising and   
falling in shuddering breaths. She had been calm just moments before,   
seriously calm, and now...  
She was falling apart! She was weak, weaker than anyone else,   
weaker than even the shakiest of the Galactic Sailors, sorry and sad   
and pathetic and--  
"Mistress Ambriel?" questioned a soft, feminine voice from   
beyond her chamber door, the voice of one of her many students. There  
was silence for a long moment, then, as though the girl beyond was   
debating whether or not to finish her statement.  
Silence...  
"I would just like to assure you that everything's fine,   
tonight, and that you don't have to worry."  
Sighing, the High Priestess of the Silver Moon smiled up at the   
ceiling. Maybe THAT was her problem. Maybe she just worried too much.   
"Thank you," she whispered, very doubtful that the girl could   
hear her as footfalls echoed down the hallway. "Thank you."  
************  
  
Neo-Queen Serenity II, the girl who had once been called Serena   
Tsukino, strode slowly across her aerial, fantastic castle, high   
heels clicking on the white marble floor of her open-air hallway.  
It never rained in Heaven. It never snowed or sleeted or even   
became overcast. Each morning was heralded by the bright glimmering   
of a perfectly spherical yellow sun. Each night was alight with a   
million bright, silvery stars. And the time between brought only blue  
skies and white cumulus clouds, with the sun never ceasing to glitter   
the color of gold.  
And there, in Heaven, were warriors. They were not as young as   
they used to be, nor as strong as they used to be, nor as happy as   
they used to be. Their home was the Earth, the place where their was   
a constant unbalance of power, of good and evil, the place where   
everything shifted daily and nothing remained the same. They couldn't   
be truly happy without that world, and yet... And yet, they survived.  
She stepped into the courtyard of her palace, white dress   
shining in the sunlight as she gazed across the flower-filled area at   
her friends. Her azure eyes were all but teary as she remembered their  
times on Earth.  
There were the Inner Senshi of long ago, Amy, Raye, Lita, and   
Mina, all sitting around a fountain, laughing and teasing as they   
laid in the warm embraces of their eternal soul mates.  
There were three of the mysterious quartet called the Outer   
Senshi, all talking in hushed tones about one thing or another, a tan-  
suited man standing nearby and sending glib comments in his wife's   
direction every few moments.  
And then, alone, was the past King of the Earth, Endymion, busy   
watering a bush of pure, blood red roses as two cats sat nearby.  
It was the ideal picture of the Silver Millennium come to life.  
"It's funny, isn't it?" questioned a soft voice from behind her,  
the strange Brooklyn twang to the tone familiar and soothing. "We're   
all together, like we used to be, and everything is right with the   
world."  
She didn't need to turn around to see a head of curly red hair   
held up by an aqua bow, or to see the spiral-glassed man at her side.  
Serenity smiled slightly, nodding at her friend. "Maybe it's   
funny," she responded sweetly, wistfully, and hopefully, "but it's   
the best peace that we could have ever hoped for."  
Molly Umino chuckled a bit, pursing her lips. "Yeah," she   
agreed thoughtfully, "it is."  
************  
  
There was dead silence in the outdoor stadium as the man stepped  
onto the podium. He was only about middle aged, with short-cropped   
brown tresses that were slightly dotted through with gray, and he was   
dressed in the traditional deep blue graduation robes that Crossroads   
School had used for generations. But the smile on the principal's   
face was impossibly bright in the afternoon sun as he smiled at the   
crowd.  
"Today is a day of passage," he stated in a deep tone, looking   
out across the five hundred odd 13th-graders that were seated before   
him on the football field. "But I think that a thousand words from me   
could not adequately describe this occasion. So I'm not going to   
talk." There was a slight sort of dull cheer as a man known to many   
as Jonathan Mokoti, the brother of the legendary Elder Queen Lyra,   
glanced down at a certain blonde in the front row. "Instead, I   
present to you our class valedictorian, Vera Haruka Hartford."  
There was a loud cheering as Vera, glittering with the very   
grace and beauty that her grandmother had held and as her mother did   
hold, took her spot before the microphone. Silence watched over the   
onlookers and the other students, the air growing still, but not   
stagnant.  
Sitting in the front row of the nearby bleachers was a   
congregation of eight females, ranging from an adult woman with   
shoulder-length ebony tresses and a little, golden-haired girl with   
remarkable crimson eyes. There was a brunette, a Shinto priestess,   
the two Elder Princesses of the Earth, a foundling with shining orange-  
gold curls, and her sister. Vera smiled at that.   
Her sister.  
The glimmer of the sun off a tiara sparkled in the foliage of a   
tree.  
"You know," began the young woman, her copper eyes glistening   
with unfallen tears as she started her speech, "a wise woman once   
told me that, with all things, comes sacrifice. This woman, my   
Grandmother Alexandra, would often tell this to both my mother and my   
aunt, and it would cause a few guffaws here and there." She smiled   
weakly, her pale pink lips curving demurely upward. She didn't like to  
smile, but it was the way of the world. The way of life. "Everyone in  
my family has heard this, and we always wanted to beam her upside the   
head for it. Especially me." The glitter of the sun on metal   
continued, and it caught her eye. She could just PICTURE the light   
orange stone that was set in the tiara. "I never really believed   
her... Until now.  
"In order for us to live our lives to the fullest, we must   
sacrifice a lot." She paused to send a meaningful glance toward her   
friends... The friends that she'd really just discovered. "We   
sacrifice five years... Five years of love, belonging, learning,   
living, companionship..." She brushed a strand of hair from her eyes,  
catching a tear with her index finger as she did so. "None of us WANT   
to make such a change, because it's hard. But it's also the way of   
life. And of the living." 'Smile, Vera. Smiling is part of life.' She  
let herself smile slightly, remembering her sister's wayward comment.  
"The old order is to be replaced by the new, and we must embrace the   
new-comers... And we must aid them..."  
Her voice echoed on, through the air and trees, her timeless   
words carrying up to the very sky. But in a tree, a tree just outside  
the black ring of track, sat six women. They were old by some  
standards, having lived forty or so years on the planet called Earth,   
but they were forever locked in that eternal dance of beauty.  
And all six looked on as the blonde teen, her eyes glimmering   
with tears and her face both smiling and crying at the same time.  
They were proud.  
"I wonder is she has a double meaning," commented the blue-  
braided one silently, buffing her fingernails on her sailor fuku.   
"After all, with the heiresses in place..."  
"Why would she bother?" questioned the auburn-haired one beside   
her with the cock of an eyebrow. "Aren't YOU the one who bothers with   
all the double meanings?"  
The blue-haired one tossed her head, only half-forging offence.  
"Aren't YOU always the idiot who doesn't think before opening that   
bottomless PIT of a mouth?" she shot back quickly, the annoyance in   
her unmistakable.  
Another woman, this one with black tresses and a green-and-tan  
suit, sighed and shook her head. "I think she meant to ask if Vera was  
hinting at the Eve, Alice..." she grumbled, olive eyes rolling back   
irritably.  
The one called Alice, the Soldier of Light, screwed her face   
into a frown. "Is it so soon?" she asked softly, almost as though she   
were afraid.  
"No..." replied the mother of the valedictorian, still staring  
off into the distance at the speaking blonde. The sun glinted off her   
tiara and its jewel, giving her a strangely surreal look. "But I see   
it every day." She sighed miserably and tried to hide the concern   
coming to her aqua eyes. "The Soldier is awakening within, and it's   
only a matter of time..."  
But she had not used the mask of a Sailor Scout in a very long   
time, prompting the curly-haired blonde beside her to pat a shapely   
shoulder. "Delaney has accepted the Silence Glaive with open arms,"   
she informed the others blandly, "and the sigil of Saturn burns   
brightly upon her brow." Pink lips pursed. "It IS but a matter of   
time."  
"But US?" griped Sailor Aurora Borealis, once again scowling.   
"MISTRESSES?"  
The Soldier of the Sun chuckled at her best friend. "We are the  
'old order,' and Vera knows it..."  
"But we all have out daughters," thought the Soldier of the   
Comets aloud, still staring down at her older child. "Even Phoebe has   
a daughter..."  
The blue-haired one sighed. "Some daughter."  
The Soldier of the Earth rolled her eyes a second time. "But   
the point here IS..."  
Silence swept over them as the last woman, oddly silent   
throughout the goings on, reached up to touch a crystal around her   
neck. The glistening silver brightened for but a second before   
dimming, casting a glow on the faces of her five best friends. Pink   
bangs just barely covered the golden moon insignia on her forehead as   
she turned her face to the sunlight glittering through the green   
leaves of summer. "The time, my Soldiers," stated Queen Serenity III,  
"has come for us to embrace our destiny."   
A sudden flash of red brought a new body, a new form, to the   
group. She was tall and thin, leaning against a tall key-staff as she   
stood at the foot of the oak tree. Colorful but then colorless eyes   
sparked silver in the noonday sun as she glanced up at the women   
before her.  
The Galactic Sailor Soldiers.  
"Because," she whispered, her words carrying lightly through   
the air, "destiny waits for no sailor."  
************  
  
And that, my friends, is all she wrote.  



End file.
